Pregnancy & Postpartum
Pregnancy and the postpartum period are times of significant life transition that may be filled with happiness, joy, and wonder. At the same time, pregnancy and parenting can trigger mental, physical, and emotional imbalances that can leave you feeling irritable, angry, afraid, sad, overwhelmed, and exhausted. These feelings can be hard to understand and difficult to manage.
In therapy, you can learn effective coping skills to respond to these challenges. Maya provides support for women, couples, and families struggling with issues related to prenatal or postpartum depression and anxiety, traumatic birth experience, transition to parenting, adjusting to more than one child, relationship or marital distress, trauma, stress, burnout, and self-care.
Loss and Grief
Maya completed Perinatal Bereavement Training with the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network.
Loss of a loved one can result in feelings of sadness, anger, and lonliness. It can take time to process grief, sadness, or resulting trauma from loss. Therapy is a safe and confidential space to support the process of grieving.
Pregnancy loss and infant death is sudden and unexpected, overwhelming and devastating. The loss may feel unbearable. You might feel shocked, numb, angry, sad, helpless, fatigued, and lonely. It may be difficult to concentrate and complete daily activities.
Therapy offers personalized, compassionate, and non-judgmental support for you to grieve an early miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, late miscarriage, medical termination, stillbirth, or infant death. In therapy, you can process your feelings and emotions, develop coping skills, learn to manage holidays and anniversaries, and re-establish balance in your life.
You and your partner may process grief in different ways. Couples counselling can help you support each other in your experience so that you stay connected. Working together, you will develop healthy ways to communicate with each other as well as family members and friends.
Am I Grieving Normally?
There is no right way to grieve. The following checklist may help you figure out how you are doing. As time passes, you will be able to answer “yes” to more and more questions. If you are not able to answer “yes” to many questions, or if you are unsure about how you are doing therapy can help.
Am I able to laugh without feeling guilty?
Do I pay attention to my personal appearance? (hair, clothes, make-up)
Do I enjoy being out with friends for an evening?
Am I feeling pleasure in sexual experiences?
Am I able to sit quietly by myself and think of things other than the loss?
Do I take an interest in current events and new? (television, radio, or newspaper)
Do I feel I can effectively parent my surviving children?
Am I able to do the daily tasks I am used to performing? (housework, cooking, yard work)
Do I look forward to outings, trips, and special events?
Am I involved in activities that I participated in before the loss? (work, volunteering, sports team, exercise)
Can I talk about the loss without showing strong emotion? (sadness, anger, jealousy)
Do I feel as though the fog has lifted?
Do I pay attention to my surroundings? (beautiful scenery, the taste of food)
Am I able to get a good night’s sleep and awaken feeling rested?
Am I able to concentrate on work and conversation?
Am I less forgetful and better able to think clearly?
Can I recall past events?
Do I feel stronger and more in control? (less like an open wound, better able to cope with others’ comments, better able to cope with everyday crises)
Do I feel that there is meaning in my life?
Limbo, R.K., & Wheeler, S.R. (1998). When a baby dies: A handbook for healing and helping (2nd ed.). La Crosse, WI: Bereavement Services.