Perinatal therapy in the Seattle area, for the part nobody warned you about
After the baby came, everyone asked about the baby. Someone brought a casserole, someone else wanted to know whether they were sleeping through the night yet, and your six-week appointment lasted about eleven minutes and came down to a form you already knew how to answer correctly. What almost nobody thought to ask was whether you still recognize yourself.
You love your child, and that was never in question — in fact it's the very reason you haven't said any of the rest of it out loud, because the moment you start, it can sound like ingratitude for something you wanted badly and, in some cases, waited a long time for.
I'm a therapist in the Seattle area, and I work with people through pregnancy, postpartum, and the parts of early parenthood that don't photograph well: the anxiety that has quietly attached itself to your baby's breathing, the rage that arrives out of nowhere around six in the evening, the intrusive thoughts so frightening you haven't repeated them to a single person, and the grief for a pregnancy you lost and are somehow expected, by now, to have moved past.
Parenthood is not a single experience. Which of these most concerns you?
Pregnancy & Prenatal Anxiety — The symptom-googling, the counting, the fear of the birth, and the pregnancy after loss that never quite lets you relax.
Therapy for Parents of Young Children — Parental burnout, the mental load, the unexpected rage, feeling touched out, and losing the person you used to be.
Parenting & Your Own Identity — For parents who love their kids and have lost track of who they are otherwise — finding the balance between your children and your own identity.
What this work covers
Anxiety, in pregnancy and after. Perinatal anxiety is real, common, and very treatable, and it gets missed all the time, particularly the anxious presentation, because a hypervigilant new mother tends to read as conscientious rather than unwell. When the worry starts before the birth, see pregnancy and prenatal anxiety.
Matrescence, the identity shift. There's a word for this, and simply knowing it exists tends to help. What's happening isn't depression or ingratitude but a wholesale reorganization of who you are, arriving at the exact moment you have the fewest resources to process any of it.
Intrusive thoughts. The images that arrive unbidden and horrify you are far more common than anyone tells new parents, they do not mean what you're so afraid they mean, and they tend to loosen their grip once they're said out loud in a room where nobody flinches.
The mental load, rage, and the early years. The invisible project management of a household that somehow became your job, the resentment that builds underneath it, and the anger that arrives out of nowhere, much of this is the focus of therapy for parents of young children.
Staying a person, not only a parent. The self that seems to have disappeared into feedings and logistics, the hobbies and friendships that lapsed, and the guilt that comes with wanting any of it back, see parenting and your own identity.
Rage and irritability. Almost nobody warns you about this, and it's very often a sign of depletion and unmet need rather than any kind of character problem.
Pregnancy loss and miscarriage. This is grief with no funeral, no leave, and a social script that runs out after about two weeks. I work with it often, and there's some writing about it further down the page.
Cultural expectations of mothers. If you're the first in your family to raise a child in this country, or if you're carrying a marianismo-shaped standard of what a good mother is supposed to be, that belongs here too. And you can read more on bilingual, bicultural therapy.
What happens next
You pick a time for us to meet, directly on my calendar. Fifteen minutes, free, by video or phone. You don't have to have the words ready or fill out long forms; I understand the first step can be difficult.
We meet virtually and talk about what's going on. I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right fit, and if I'm not, I'll point you toward someone in my network who is.
If it feels right, we schedule your first full session, usually within a week. I see clients at my office in Edmonds on the waterfront, or virtually across Washington State.
Common Questions
Is this postpartum depression or am I just tired?
Both can be true at the same time, and the distinction that matters clinically isn't how bad it feels during your worst hour. It's duration and reach. Is this most days for more than two weeks, is it touching your sleep even when the baby sleeps, are you unable to feel any relief when there's a genuine break, and are you avoiding things because of the worry?
The presentation people miss most often is the anxious one: checking the monitor eleven times before you can settle, unable to let anyone else hold the baby, your mind running disaster scenarios on a loop. That is a treatable postpartum condition, and it is not a fixed feature of who you are.
If you're having thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, that needs same-day support, call or text 988, or go to your nearest emergency department. Intrusive thoughts that frighten you are different from intent, and if you're unsure which you're having, that's exactly what a consult call is for.
Do I have to bring the baby?
You're welcome to, and nobody here will mind in the slightest. A lot of my clients do their sessions online during naps, which is often the only reliable fifty minutes in the week, and I want to be clear that this is a completely legitimate way to do the work rather than some compromised version of it.
What if the pregnancy loss was years ago?
Then it's still worth bringing. Grief doesn't expire on a schedule, and a loss that was never fully tended has a way of resurfacing later on, during a subsequent pregnancy, around an anniversary, or the day a friend announces hers.
Do I have to want to be pregnant for this to apply?
No, and honestly this is one of the real gaps in how perinatal care usually gets described.
Ambivalence about a pregnancy is common and very rarely spoken aloud, and so are anger at being pregnant, grief after a termination, the particular loneliness of infertility treatment, and the strange experience of loving your child while wanting your old life back. None of that makes you a bad parent or a poor candidate for this work; it makes you a person having an ordinary human response to an enormous change.
This work also covers people who aren't pregnant and won't be: partners, and people who are still deciding whether to try at all.
