Our specialties

Transition to Motherhood

We Rise Therapy & Wellness welcomes clients at every stage of the infertility, pregnancy, and postpartum process, offering support during this significant transition.

Is The Path Toward Motherhood Not What You Expected?

Are you struggling to feel adequate on your fertility or postpartum journey? Have you developed anxious or depressed thinking related to your parenting abilities? Could you benefit from additional empathetic support from a trained clinician who specializes in maternal mental health and pregnancy-related issues?

Whether you are just beginning your pregnancy journey or have recently given birth, this chapter of life is full of big decisions, new experiences, and emotional ups and downs. If the stress of this transition has become too much to navigate on your own, support is available to you. 

Perhaps you are struggling to conceive. While you are trying to remain calm and open-minded about getting pregnant when the time is right, you may be anxious that things aren’t going according to plan. Feeling isolated, you might find it difficult to connect to those around you—including your partner or peers who seem to have become pregnant with no issue. And if you have started to introduce medical interventions on your fertility journey—including IVF—it’s possible you are dealing with added emotional and physical discomfort. 

On the other hand, you may be currently pregnant and overwhelmed by what’s to come. Maybe you’re considering big changes in your career and at home, causing you to worry about all the ways that your life is about to change. And if you have developed ongoing symptoms of sadness, panic, or withdrawal, there may be an underlying perinatal mood disorder at the cause of your distress. Your body is rapidly changing, and it might be hard for your mind to catch up. 

Lastly, if you have recently given birth, you may be struggling with the adjustment to motherhood. Perhaps you have responsibilities—including work or other children—that seem to have fallen by the wayside, and you are not feeling adequately supported. This has likely caused tension between you and your partner, as you both adapt to the immense responsibility of parenthood. 

Becoming a mother is one of the most rewarding, transformational, and intimidating experiences around—there is so much pressure to put everyone else’s needs before yours and do everything “right.” Yet, it is possible to balance the tasks of a healthy pregnancy and effective parenting approach with your own needs. At We Rise Therapy & Wellness, our clinicians are women of color and mothers themselves who can offer meaningful mental health support on your fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum journey.

Whether you’re adjusting to a new living situation, job, or relationship, you may be feeling anxious about what’s next. And if your life transition involves some element of loss—including a breakup or the death of a loved one—you are likely experiencing intense emotional pain and loneliness.

Feelings of grief are intensified by the lack of a supportive, understanding community. Maybe you have just moved to a new place, and you’re struggling to maintain old relationships while making new connections. In particular, as a person of color, you may have come up against cultural barriers in your situation. And it’s possible that your feelings aren’t validated or normalized, causing you to bottle up and suppress tough emotions.

New And Expecting Mothers Face Immense Pressure From All Angles

Between fertility challenges, perinatal mood disorders, and the transition into the role of “Mom,” there is a lot to juggle when it comes to maternal mental health. Most women encounter symptoms of anxiety and depression during at least one aspect of the parenting journey, but many of us feel as though we should be able to manage the transition on our own without support. 

For many of us, shame prevents us from openly discussing the struggles associated with motherhood. We may feel guilty if the process isn’t as joyful as we expected or if our experience doesn’t align with what we read about in pregnancy books and the other new moms in our lives. Furthermore, social media perpetuates a comparison culture of parenting, making us feel ashamed that we aren’t achieving the picture-perfect family we envisioned for ourselves. 

There are also many cultural expectations surrounding the role of motherhood in women’s lives. For those of us who come from multicultural families, in particular, there may be certain expectations around working as a mom and how we parent in general. We may grapple with raising our children from dueling cultural perspectives—trying to balance our parents’ and grandparents’ expectations with our own unique parenting approach. 

With pressure coming in from all angles, it can begin to feel like a safe, neutral place to process this transitional period of life does not exist. But therapy is an opportunity to heal from fertility struggles, manage the changes associated with pregnancy, and feel supported in all aspects of the perinatal and postpartum experience.

Fertility, Pregnancy, And Postpartum Support At We Rise Therapy & Wellness

The journey toward parenthood introduces a lot of what ifs to daily life—What if I’m not able to get pregnant? What if I miss the elements of my life that I’ll lose once I become a mother? What if I don’t have the tools I need to parent effectively? Therapy gives you a chance to safely explore these thoughts, feelings, and fears as you become more comfortable with uncertainty. 

In learning valuable tools to overcome anxiety and self-doubt, you will establish a new sense of self-confidence that can help you address fertility, pregnancy, and parenting obstacles with clarity. Whether you are in the process of conceiving, currently pregnant, or recently postpartum, our therapists will tailor counseling to meet your unique needs.

Our Approach

After you have worked with our client care coordinator to fill out the necessary paperwork and get matched with one of our skilled therapists, you will schedule an intake session that will help your clinician better understand your perinatal/postpartum experience and goals for counseling. 

From there, we will focus our work on identifying your strengths. Transitioning into motherhood often introduces feelings of overwhelm and inadequacy, but therapy offers perspective into what you’re capable of. The more we work to empower your strengths, the more you will be able to differentiate healthy patterns from unhealthy ones and develop new ways of thinking. 

Our approach to therapy for fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum issues is client-centered and solution-oriented. We know you have a lot on your plate, and our clinicians are invested in helping you address ongoing symptoms of distress quickly, and in a lasting way. As such, we are likely to incorporate elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) into counseling, which can help positively adjust your perinatal/postpartum mindset. And because we are a culturally affirming practice of South/East Asian therapists, we are likely to use cultural relational models to affirm your experience of motherhood—especially if you identify as a person of color yourself. 

A healthy outlook is not only essential for your own individual needs as a new mom; it’s essential to sustaining your relationships and ability to parent. Therapy that centers maternal mental health can be the key to achieving transformative support on your pregnancy journey. With the guidance you receive through fertility/perinatal/postpartum counseling at We Rise Therapy & Wellness, you can learn to be your own friend through this life-changing process!

You May Still Have Questions About Whether Counseling Is Right For You…

The perinatal and/or postpartum issues I’m struggling with are common and expected—I don’t see how therapy can help.

While it’s true that many women develop maternal mental health issues during their fertility, pregnancy, and parenting journeys, each one of us has a different experience with the transition into motherhood. This is a deeply sensitive and often scary period of life, and you deserve to feel supported along the way. Therapy allows you to become aware of your thoughts and feelings so that you can better understand how those thoughts and feelings impact your behaviors. With these insights, you’ll be able to discern healthy patterns from unhealthy ones, thereby facilitating a stronger sense of self-awareness, resilience, and peace in your life.

As a perinatal and/or postpartum woman, I don’t have time for therapy.

We completely understand that if you are currently pregnant or postpartum, or if you are experiencing fertility challenges, your time is limited and there is a lot on your plate. However, achieving optimal maternal mental health will actually free up your time in the long run. As you gain clarity and perspective in counseling, you are likely to spend less time worrying and feeling drained of energy so that you can be more present throughout the pregnancy journey and process of raising a child.

Therapy is expensive, and I notice you don’t take insurance for maternal mental health counseling.

Because we strongly believe in customizing therapy to each individual client’s needs, we generally do not accept insurance. Insurance companies often require a diagnosis, limited treatment sessions, and disclosure that compromises the client’s sense of privacy. We prefer to approach fertility/pregnancy/postpartum issues on a case-by-case basis so that our clients can get the tailored support they need in therapy. That said, a few therapists at our practice accept United Healthcare, and we also take HSA and FSA credit cards. Because we are an out-of-network provider, our client care coordinator will assist you in determining your benefits and provide you with a superbill to submit for reimbursement.

Related Posts

Approach Pregnancy And Parenting With Confidence

No matter where you are on your motherhood journey—whether you’re pregnant, postpartum, or struggling to conceive—therapy can offer affirming, life-changing support. To be matched with a perinatal/postpartum mental health therapist, please fill out a consultation form or call (973) 370 – 2290 to get started.
Click here