Postpartum Trauma Therapist in Los Angeles, CA

If you could do it all over again, you would. Not because it was the joyful, easy birth you’d envisioned, but because you need to do it again. There has to be a way to fix what went wrong, to make the medical team listen to you, to be able to hold your baby instead of having them whisked away.  If you could do it all over again, maybe you wouldn’t have these awful flashes of being in the delivery or operating room, and that sense of dread you can’t seem to shake. 

You’ve been home for a while now, safe and sound. But it hasn’t felt like that in a long time, has it? You find yourself startling when your older children make noise— which is often—  and it’s so overwhelming to take care of your little one that sometimes you get this impulse to run away. If only you could get enough sleep, perhaps things would improve. But the little rest you do get is plagued by vivid dreams and nightmares.

You’re noticing that you’re not as connected to your baby as you once imagined. There’s been a few times when you are holding them in your arms, but everything feels surreal, and sad, too. You blame yourself for missing out on these precious moments but it’s hard to connect to your baby, and to yourself. You don’t want your little one to know how painful this is for you, to sense your devastation, so you walk away. You wish you could soothe them, but you’re struggling to soothe yourself.