Pregnancy Loss, Reproductive Trauma & EMDR

Pregnancy Loss & Reproductive Trauma

Pregnancy Loss: Whether you are experiencing/have experienced a first time miscarriage, recurrent miscarriages, missed miscarriage, termination for medical reasons (TFMR), ectopic pregnancy, threatened or inevitable miscarriage, stillbirth, or other loss, you deserve deep support and care.

Not everyone may choose to bring this pain to therapy, as there are many ways to recover from pregnancy loss, but in psychotherapy I can support:

  • Processing grief, sadness, anger, confusion, guilt, self-blame

  • Creating a coherent understanding of events

  • Coping strategies for overwhelming emotions and navigating people, places and situations that suddenly feel quite difficult to mange

  • Support for communication, self-expression and needs within relationships

  • Honoring the loss and exploring meaningful ways to honor and remember your loss

Reproductive Trauma: This refers to the emotional, physical and cognitive responses to a terrible event(s) or a series of chronically stressful experiences occurring in the context of reproductive efforts and trying to achieve pregnancy.

Many of the experiences of TTC, infertility, assisted reproduction, and pregnancy loss fall under this conceptualization and can deeply effect changes to sense of self, place in the world, esteem for self and others, sense of safety and trust in self, the world, and intimacy. These experiences may lead to distressing memories, physical sensations, persistent beliefs, and other forms of suffering. Specialized trauma care is deeply helpful for processing these symptoms and experiences to facilitate recovery.

You may be seeking therapy because of a troubling event in your TTC journey; a traumatic delivery, pregnancy loss, painful infertility treatments, reactions to parts of the process that negativity affect you. (For example, I particularly struggle with the need for a full bladder for many fertility procedures and came to dread this with embryo transfers, needing support to address this intense discomfort).

Or during our work together we may come to understand your experiences are collectively overwhelming your ability to cope and process as they occur, and our treatment plan can include education on traumatic or recurrent stressors and focus particularly on addressing the beliefs, sensations, persistent negative emotional states or behavioral and relational changes that are hallmarks for traumatic stress.

“Those of us who have already chosen to embrace a love ethic, know that when we let our light shine, we draw to us and are drawn to other bearers of light. We are not alone.” bell hooks

Attachment-Focused EMDR & TTC

For the majority of my career I have focused on treatment of traumatic stress and have extensive training in several evidence based treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder, including Cognitive Processing Therapy and EMDR, both of which are treatments included in the American Psychological Association’s Clinical Practice Guidelines for treatment of PTSD.

While the focus of my practice has shifted to specifically work with the unique needs of TTC, I recognize that the associated strain can often trigger past stressors, painful beliefs/experiences about self and the world, and cause relational instability, fear, loneliness, and isolation. As a result, I often emphasize enhancing overall well-being, fostering a sense of safety and personal agency, and strengthening supportive relationships and networks and treating any preexisting traumatic stress.

Aligned with this focus, I currently prioritize working with a type of EMDR called Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR), developed by the Parnell Institute, which I find to be powerfully helpful. If there are specific painful and disturbing memories, body sensations, or persistent symptoms that you would like to address related to your TTC experiences, this therapy modality is often highly effective at providing relief for traumatic stress and PTSD.

Additionally, given that AF-EMDR focuses on building internal strengths and resources like calm, protection, nurturing, and wisdom, I believe the interventions offered by this therapy strongly align with the needs of those trying to conceive. Even without specific traumatic events to process, we can explore how EMDR resourcing might benefit you as we develop our treatment plan together.

A Note About Grief

For so many of us, grief and loss is at the center of difficult trying to conceive journeys.

Loss of beliefs, expectations, of parts of ourself or our relationships.

Grieving time spent in doctor’s offices or hospitals when we wish to be anywhere else.

Grieving who we were before TTC took over our lives.

Grieving a dream of having a partner in your parenting journey and doing this solo.

Grief of dreams put on hold, changed, or lost altogether.

Grief of a baby that never was, or a due date that haunts us.

Losing connection to our bodies and the sense that our bodies are our own.

Grief that others do not understand, do not support or actively judge our bodies, relationships and choices.

Grieving changing bodies, changing priorities, changing emotions.

Rivers, waves, oceans, storms of grief, surging and crashing over us, pulling us under and pushing out into new waters that we do not know how to navigate.

Grieving is in every step of an unexpectedly challenging TTC journey and grieving so often is the work.

Reach Out

Let’s schedule a 15 minutes phone consultation to discuss your needs