Getting ready to welcome a new baby into the world is a time of anticipation and preparation. You may be feeling excitement, worry, and hope. You may wonder who you will be as a parent and what your life will be like.

If you have a history of trauma or abuse, you might be concerned about how these might show up for you as a parent or in childbirth. You may be wondering how you will manage the pain of childbirth. If you’ve had health complications, you may worry about the well-being of your baby or your own health.

You might be missing people who you wish could be here for you during this time. You might be wondering how this will change your intimate relationships. You might question who you will become after you become a parent.

If you have a history of infertility, miscarriage, infant loss, or abortion, you might have complex feelings including fear, helplessness, guilt, or grief. You might have struggled to attach to this pregnancy to protect yourself from feeling the pain you have felt before.

There are so many questions and unknowns and all the while you are just waiting while your body grows and grows.

I understand. I’ve been there. I’ve given birth to two living children following four pregnancy losses. I can help you make the most of this prenatal time so that you can welcome your baby with your whole loving self.

How counselling can help

We will begin with understanding your prenatal experience – how you are feeling about your pregnancy, your future baby, and your future role change. Every person’s identity, cultural context, and pregnancy is completely unique and I want to understand yours.

In counselling, we can take a look at patterns in your family-of-origin and your emerging family-of-creation and decide which legacies you want to bring into the future and which ones you want to leave in the past. We can look at any history of trauma or abuse and understand how they might show up for you as a parent or in childbirth.

Counselling can help to uncover your core self who can parent with compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness.

We can update your support network, coping strategies, and self-care plan for when the baby arrives. We can build self-compassion practices so that you can hold your self as tenderly as you hold your baby. We can learn self-regulation and calming practices to help you through childbirth.

I do all this with a combination of Bowen Family Systems therapy, Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (similar to CBT), somatic therapy, and narrative therapy.

I’m here to walk through this prenatal period with you. Please reach out, or book an appointment.