Fertility Support

 

As individuals and couples seek to expand their families and embark upon the journey of parenthood, they often begin that journey filled with hope and anticipation for their future family. When challenges related to fertility arise, they can face a myriad of important and complex decisions such as exploring infertility treatment options, partnering with a gestational carrier (surrogate), pursuing adoption, or becoming a foster parent. Therapy can assist individuals and couples along their journeys to parenthood through support and education as complexities are navigated such as:

  • Family building in the context of COVID-19
  • Struggles with intimacy in the context of planning intercourse around peak fertility
  • Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) options including IUI and IVF
  • Infertility challenges
  • Third-party reproduction including use of donor sperm, eggs, or embryos as well as partnering with a gestational carrier
  • Decisions regarding known, anonymous, or willing-to-be known donors
  • Decisions regarding preferences for prenatal care and delivery
  • Postpartum mood and anxiety disorders
  • Navigating challenges specific to the foster care system
  • Adoption
  • Breast/Chestfeeding decisions and challenges
  • Decisions regarding disclosure to family, friends and children regarding the journey to parenthood
  • Single parenting
  • Co-parenting: Getting on the same page!
  • Issues specific to blended families
  • Building needed support systems
  • Fertility preservation
  • Coping with stressors throughout the journey to parenthood

Support is also available for individuals and couples who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth and are having difficulty coping. This kind of loss can lead to depression and it can be extremely difficult to think of anything else. 

Erin recognizes that every family’s journey to parenthood is unique. Erin has personal experience navigating fertility with assisted reproductive technology. She has completed the Mental Health Professional Certificate Course through the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and is a member of ASRM and the ASRM Mental Health Professional Group. She has also completed Postpartum Support International’s Perinatal Mental Health Certification Program coursework and is a Certified Perinatal Mental Health Professional (PMH-C). 

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