Erica is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in pregnancy, postpartum, infertility and the transition into parenthood. Becoming a parent can sometimes begin with months or years of waiting, treatments, losses, hope rising and falling again. What seemed like a straight forward path can be terrain that includes uncertainty, intensive medical intervention and grief. People often come into therapy full of questions. What kind of body do I have? What if the future I planned doesn’t happen for me?

Pregnancy can bring on more that is complex for the body, mind and soul. There is a crossing into a new identity with familial and cultural expectations. What do we carry from our own childhoods about what parenthood is supposed to be?

Becoming a parent can awaken old memories, forgotten feelings and long-standing relationship patterns. Many people notice that they are not the person they were before but they are also not yet someone new. Joy and grief, love and loneliness - arrive in the same hour. Many parents are surprised by feelings that are unexpected including anger, numbness, anxiety or intrusive thoughts.

These experiences are often treated as problems to eliminate as quickly as possible. Erica views these symptoms as meaningful. They speak about expectations, losses, histories of care and the complicated ways we become who we are. When listened to carefully, they often reveal something important about your inner life.

Therapy offers a place where these experiences can arise rather than be pushed away. Erica makes a space for grief, mourning, love and the slow process of becoming someone new. The task is not to become a perfect parent but to grow into this new life with a deeper understand of what shapes you.