Petaluma, California | Anywhere Virtually in CA
Therapy for the emotional side
of becoming a parent.
Support through trying to conceive, pregnancy, postpartum, loss, and the identity shifts that come with raising a tiny human.
Parenthood begins long before birth and so does the emotional weight that comes with it.
For many people, this season includes hope and excitement alongside anxiety, grief, fear, regret or exhaustion. There may be pressure to feel grateful, confident, or joyful, even when the internal experience feels far more complicated.
Pregnancy and postpartum therapy offers space to talk honestly about what this chapter actually feels like. This work focuses on understanding emotional responses, processing change and loss, and supporting steadiness during a period that can feel both meaningful and overwhelming.
Areas I Offer Support
-
![]()
Trying to Conceive
The process of trying to conceive can be emotionally exhausting, especially when it involves cycle tracking, fertility treatments, or repeated disappointment. Therapy can be a place to process grief, pressure, decision-making, and the sense of lost control that often accompanies this experience.
-
![]()
Postpartum
After birth, many parents notice sadness, overwhelm, irritability, or anxiety that lasts longer than expected. Therapy focuses on stabilizing mood, processing the transition into parenthood, and supporting a sense of self during a period of major change.
-
![]()
Pregnancy
Pregnancy can include excitement, fear, irritability, intrusive thoughts, and anxiety, sometimes all at once. Therapy supports emotional regulation, grounding, and understanding mood and anxiety changes that can arise during pregnancy, not just after birth.
-
![]()
Grief & Loss
Miscarriage, stillbirth, termination, or complicated births carry grief that is often invisible but deeply impactful. Therapy offers space to honor these experiences, process loss, and explore what healing looks like on your terms.
1 in 5 women are impacted by mental health challenges during the pregnancy and postpartum period. 75% of these women remain untreated. This is more common than it’s talked about, and support can make a meaningful difference.
This work commonly supports moms navigating:
-
Including racing thoughts, constant worry, irritability, low mood, emotional numbness, or intrusive fears that feel frightening or hard to say out loud. Support focuses on how anxiety, mood changes, and OCD uniquely show up during the postpartum period and how to relate to thoughts and emotions with more flexibility and self trust.
-
Unwanted thoughts about harm, safety, responsibility, or whether you are a good mother. These thoughts are often deeply distressing because they go against your values and sense of self. Therapy helps reduce the power these thoughts hold and interrupt cycles of reassurance, rumination, or compulsive checking.
-
Especially when these patterns center around your baby’s safety, feeding, sleep, or development. Support focuses on easing mental and behavioral overcontrol while building confidence, tolerance for uncertainty, and trust in yourself as a mother.
-
When the mental load of motherhood feels nonstop and rest does not feel restorative. This often includes carrying the invisible labor of planning, anticipating needs, and managing emotions for others while your own needs are minimized.
-
Including feeling distant, numb, or disconnected from your baby or from yourself. These experiences are more common than most mothers expect and can bring guilt or fear. Therapy offers space to explore this gently without pressure or judgment.
-
When things may look okay on the outside, but internally you feel flat, unlike yourself, or emotionally absent. This can be intensified by social media portrayals of motherhood that do not reflect your lived experience.
-
Support for anxiety, mood shifts, body based fears, or intrusive thoughts during pregnancy, especially when pregnancy feels emotionally complex, overwhelming, or different than expected.
-
Including fertility treatments, hormonal changes, loss of control, waiting, disappointment, and non traditional paths to motherhood. This season often carries chronic stress, grief, and identity strain that deserve care and support.
-
Support following miscarriage, stillbirth, termination, infant loss, or traumatic birth experiences. This includes processing grief while navigating ongoing hormonal changes and physical reminders in the body.
-
Adjusting to changes in sense of self, body image, priorities, friendships, and relationships. This can include missing your old life, questioning former goals, or feeling like you no longer recognize yourself.
-
Support around boundaries, expectations, and feeling protected during a vulnerable season, especially when opinions about parenting, feeding, or recovery feel overwhelming or intrusive.
-
Item description
How to Get Started
-
Reach Out
Start by filling out the contact form. We’ll schedule a free 15-minute consultation call to talk briefly about what’s bringing you here and see if working together feels like a good fit.
-
Get Set Up
If we decide to move forward, we’ll schedule your first session. I’ll send you a few simple forms to complete online through my secure client portal so everything feels settled before we begin.
-
Begin Therapy
Our first 50-minute session is a chance to slow things down. We’ll get to know each other, talk through what you’re navigating right now, and begin shaping goals that feel realistic and supportive for you.
Research suggests about 1 in 10 fathers experience postpartum depression, with increased risk when a partner is also struggling. Therapy supports all parents navigating this transition.
This work commonly supports dads navigating:
-
Including worry about your partner, your child, and the responsibility you are carrying. Many dads feel pressure to anticipate problems, stay alert, and hold things together, even when they feel uncertain or overwhelmed.
-
Unwanted thoughts about harm, safety, responsibility, or whether you are a good mother. These thoughts are often deeply distressing because they go against your values and sense of self. Therapy helps reduce the power these thoughts hold and interrupt cycles of reassurance, rumination, or compulsive checking.
-
Especially when these patterns center around your baby’s safety, feeding, sleep, or development. Support focuses on easing mental and behavioral overcontrol while building confidence, tolerance for uncertainty, and trust in yourself as a mother.
-
When the mental load of motherhood feels nonstop and rest does not feel restorative. This often includes carrying the invisible labor of planning, anticipating needs, and managing emotions for others while your own needs are minimized.
-
Especially if you were not raised in an environment where feelings were talked about or validated. Therapy helps build language for emotions and creates space to talk openly without pressure to fix or perform.
Managing parenthood on your own
Many parents navigating pregnancy, postpartum anxiety, or perinatal emotional overwhelm find themselves weighing two ways of getting through this season.
Pushing through often looks like:
✧ Minimizing emotional reactions
✧ Assuming things will improve once sleep or routines settle
✧ Carrying guilt about not feeling the “right” way
✧ Managing grief, fear, or anxiety internally
Managing parenthood with therapy
Pregnancy and postpartum therapy offers:
✧ Space to speak honestly about mixed emotions
✧ Understanding your nervous system and exploring your personal values and changes in identity during this period
✧ Support that adapts as circumstances shift
✧ Tools that promote steadiness rather than suppression
✧ Evidence-based support for pregnancy anxiety, postpartum anxiety, mood changes, and identity transitions during the perinatal period
Both paths involve effort. Therapy adds reflection, processing, and support — offered in person in Petaluma and via telehealth across California.
FAQs for Perinatal Therapy
-
Yes. Anxiety, intrusive thoughts, irritability, and emotional distance can occur during pregnancy—not just after birth. Hormonal shifts, physical changes, uncertainty, and past experiences (including loss or trauma) can all shape how pregnancy feels emotionally. Therapy helps you understand these responses, separate normal adjustment from patterns that need support, and build steadiness during a transition that asks a lot of both mind and body.
-
The baby blues are common and typically ease within the first two weeks after birth. If sadness, anxiety, irritability, or overwhelm last longer than two weeks, feel intense, or interfere with sleep, concentration, or daily functioning, therapy can help clarify what’s happening. You don’t need to be certain about a diagnosis to seek support—therapy focuses on reducing distress and helping you feel more grounded, regardless of the label.
-
Loving your baby and struggling emotionally can exist at the same time. Many parents feel confused or ashamed by this disconnect, especially when expectations don’t match reality. Therapy creates space to talk honestly about mixed emotions, without judgment, and to understand how sleep deprivation, identity shifts, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts may be contributing. Feeling “off” doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong; it often means you need support during a major life transition.
-
Yes. Fertility treatment can be emotionally demanding, isolating, and unpredictable. Therapy provides space to process the stress, grief, hope, and disappointment that often accompany cycles, appointments, and waiting. Mental health support is an important part of fertility care—research from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine highlights that emotional distress is a significant reason many people pause or end fertility treatment. Therapy helps support emotional regulation, decision-making, and sustainability during a process that can otherwise become overwhelming.
-
Therapy supports people in holding disappointment and grief when faced with outcomes they never wanted or anticipated. For some, this includes processing loss while continuing treatment. For others, it means making sense of a reality that requires redefining expectations or next steps. Therapy doesn’t rush acceptance or solutions—it creates space to process what’s been lost while supporting clarity, self-compassion, and movement forward in a way that respects both your limits and your hopes.
-
Yes. Research suggests that about 1 in 10 fathers experience postpartum depression, and anxiety is also common for non-birthing parents. This can show up as irritability, withdrawal, sleep disruption, increased worry, or feeling disconnected or overwhelmed. Therapy supports all parents as they adjust to new roles, shifting relationships, and the emotional impact of this transition.
-
No. Therapy is available for fathers and non-birthing parents navigating emotional changes after a baby arrives. Sessions can focus on anxiety, mood changes, intrusive thoughts, role shifts, or the mental load of parenting. The goal is to support the whole family system, not just one parent.
-
Yes. Therapy offers space to process grief, honor the loss, and make sense of what you’ve been through—at your own pace. Loss can affect emotions, identity, relationships, and future decisions in ways that aren’t always visible to others. Therapy supports you in carrying this experience with care while finding ways to move forward that feel respectful and grounded.
-
Pregnancy after loss is different than pregnancy without loss. The fear that something could go wrong isn’t just an irrational worry, it’s tied to a lived experience. When loss has already happened, anxiety often reflects memory and protection, not imagination.
That fear doesn’t always disappear, but it can become more manageable. Therapy focuses on helping you stay grounded in the present while honoring what you’ve been through. We may incorporate tools around emotional regulation, body-based calming, and ways to approach milestones, such as appointments, ultrasounds, or trimester transitions, with more support and intention. The goal isn’t to eliminate fear, but to help it take up less space so you can move through pregnancy with more steadiness and self-trust.
-
Yes. Birth-related trauma is complicated. For some people, distress shows up immediately; for others, it emerges months or even years later. Birth is a powerful, life-changing experience, regardless of how it unfolded or how it ended—and it can leave a lasting emotional and nervous system imprint.
Processing a birth experience often starts with having a trusted place to share your story. That might be in therapy, with a partner, or through revisiting the experience in different ways, such as reading your medical notes, an after-visit summary, or reflections from a doula who was present. Sometimes hearing your partner’s perspective on the birth adds important context or clarity. Therapy supports making sense of the experience, integrating it over time, and reducing how it continues to show up, so the story feels more complete and less overwhelming.
-
There’s no single timeline. For some people, symptoms ease within months; for others, they persist or shift as circumstances change. Therapy helps address symptoms early, understand what’s maintaining them, and support recovery in a way that fits your sleep, support system, and stage of parenthood. The goal isn’t to rush the process, but to reduce distress and help you feel more steady over time.
-
Parenthood involves a major shift in identity, routines, relationships, and internal expectations. Feeling disconnected from your former self doesn’t mean something is wrong—it often means you’re adjusting to a new role without much space to process it. Therapy helps make sense of these changes, integrate old and new parts of yourself, and reconnect with what matters to you in this season.
-
Bonding doesn’t always happen instantly, and there’s a wide range of normal. Just like getting to know a new friend or coworker takes time, building a relationship with your baby can also be a gradual process. You’re both learning each other’s rhythms, needs, and personalities, and figuring out what works for you together.
Anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, birth experiences, and intrusive thoughts can all affect how connected you feel early on. Therapy offers space to talk about this openly, without shame or pressure, and to support bonding in ways that feel realistic, flexible, and attuned to you and your baby over time.
-
Sessions focus on understanding emotional responses, processing change, and building emotional regulation during a demanding life stage. We start by talking about what brought you in, your support system, and what this season has been like so far, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Therapy may include making sense of anxiety, intrusive thoughts, mood shifts, identity changes, or grief around expectations that didn’t match reality. We work collaboratively to set goals, adjust pacing based on sleep and capacity, and build tools that feel realistic for this phase of life. Some sessions may focus on coping and stabilization; others on reflection and longer-term patterns. The work adapts as pregnancy progresses or as you move through the postpartum shift or loss transition.
-
Yes. A consultation can help clarify what support might be helpful, even if you’re unsure.I’m happy to talk you through the process and answer any questions you may have.