Parenthood can be wonderful. It can also be complicated.
Becoming a parent can change almost everything.
Your identity. Your relationships. Your priorities. Your body. Your expectations of yourself.
And sometimes the reality of parenthood doesn't look anything like the picture you had in your head.
You might feel overwhelmed, anxious, disconnected, angry, guilty or lost.
You might be struggling with something that happened during pregnancy or birth.
Or you might be carrying grief for something you hoped would happen but didn't.
It's not just about mothers.
Partners can experience birth trauma, baby loss, infertility and mental-health difficulties too.
Sometimes the person supporting everyone else is the one who has never had the chance to process what they've experienced themselves.
I work with both individuals and couples around these experiences.
You don't have to minimise what happened.
You don't have to tell yourself that other people have it worse.
And you don't have to wait until you're completely overwhelmed before asking for support.
Counselling can give you a space to talk about the things that might feel difficult to say anywhere else.
If you'd like to talk about what you're experiencing, you can book a free 20-minute chat.
I support people through a range of experiences around parenthood, including:
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Your birth experience matters.
Even if everything went "well" medically, you can still be left feeling frightened, powerless, unheard or affected by what happened.
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There is no right way to grieve a baby.
Whether your loss was recent or happened years ago, grief can continue to show up in unexpected ways.
Baby loss includes miscarriage, still birth, molar pregnancy, TFMR, SIDs, loss of embryo and termination.
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The emotional impact of infertility can be enormous.
It can affect your identity, relationships, hopes for the future and how you experience other people's pregnancies and children.
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Pregnancy and the period after having a baby can bring significant emotional challenges.
Anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, overwhelm and feeling disconnected from yourself can all be part of the picture.
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For some, birth trauma begins long before birth. Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) can make pregnancy feel like something you simply have to survive, rather than the experience you expected it to be.
The physical and emotional impact can stay with you long after pregnancy, whether you're processing what happened, feeling anxious about future pregnancies or struggling with emotions that are difficult to make sense of.
Having experienced HG myself, I understand how isolating it can feel when you're struggling while being told to “love every minute.”
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Sometimes the biggest challenge isn't one particular event.
It's simply becoming a parent.
You may feel that you've lost part of yourself, struggle with your new identity or find that parenthood has affected your relationship, confidence or sense of who you are.
