You survived the NICU.
You don’t have to stay in survival mode.
Trauma after the NICU doesn’t always look like obvious flashbacks. Sometimes it looks like checking your sleeping baby one more time.Feeling your stomach drop when you walk into a hospital.
Going from zero to worst-case scenario over a symptom that may be completely ordinary. Feeling shut down when someone asks about the birth. Being unable to make a decision because every option suddenly feels connected to your child’s safety. Or knowing intellectually that your baby is okay while your body is shouting something very different.
Our work creates space to process what happened without asking you to endlessly retell or analyze every painful detail.
We can work with the memories, sensations, beliefs, grief, and survival responses that may still be running in the background so that your NICU story can become something you remember, rather than something your body continually feels it has to relive.
Brainspotting
When you understand what happened but still feel stuck.
You can know exactly where your anxiety came from and still feel your chest tighten. You can understand that the NICU was traumatic and still panic when your child gets sick. You can tell yourself, “We’re safe now,” while another part of your brain screams, “Do not let your guard down.”
This is where Brainspotting can be especially powerful.
Brainspotting is a trauma-processing approach that uses focused visual attention and your brain’s natural processing capacity to work with emotional material that talking alone may not fully reach.
Rather than forcing you to relive every moment, we gently notice what your nervous system is holding and give your brain the time, focus, and support it needs to process what has remained stuck.
For NICU moms, that might mean working with the moment your baby was taken away, the helplessness of watching from beside an isolette, the fear of leaving the hospital without your baby, or the belief that you should have somehow been able to prevent what happened.
The goal isn’t to erase the memory.
It’s to help the memory stop setting off the alarm.
Anxiety in Motherhood
You want peace. Not perfection.
Motherhood already asks a lot from a nervous system.
Motherhood after the NICU can feel like parenting with the volume turned all the way up.
You may find yourself snapping when you’re overwhelmed, drowning in guilt afterward, Googling symptoms late at night, struggling to trust anyone else with your child, or wondering what happened to the easygoing version of you.
And underneath it all may be the relentless shoulds:
I should be grateful.
I should be enjoying this.
I should know what my baby needs.
I should be handling this better.
In our work together, we make room for something different.
We’ll help you recognize what happens in your brain and body when anxiety takes over, build tools you can actually access in the middle of real life, and create more space between what you feel and how you respond.
Not perfect regulation.
Not perfect motherhood.
More capacity. More self-trust. More room for joy.
You Don’t Have to Choose Between Caring for Your Baby and Caring for Yourself.
An Integrative Approach to Postpartum Recovery
Sometimes the emotional story isn’t the whole story.
Pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, sleep disruption, chronic stress, NICU trauma, irregular meals, and months of operating on adrenaline can ask an enormous amount from a mother’s body.
That’s why I don’t believe postpartum mental health should always be approached from the neck up.
Alongside nervous system and trauma work, I’m interested in the physical foundations that may influence how resilient, energized, and supported you feel.
Depending on your goals, our work may explore nourishment, minerals, sleep and circadian rhythms, light exposure, hydration, and other practical ways of supporting your body as it recovers from an extraordinarily demanding season.
Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA)
For moms who want to take a deeper integrative look at their postpartum recovery, Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis can be one tool we use to explore your mineral patterns and build a more personalized wellness plan.
Rather than treating the results as a diagnosis, we use them as another piece of information about the body you’re living in.
Together, we can look at what the results may suggest alongside your symptoms, lifestyle, stress load, nourishment, and postpartum experience, then create practical strategies to support your overall well-being.
Because sometimes the most compassionate question isn’t:
“Why can’t I handle this better?”
It’s:
“What has my body been carrying, and what might help it feel supported again?”
- Ways to Work with Me -
Therapy & Nervous System Support
For moms who want ongoing individual support, our sessions can focus on anxiety, trauma processing, nervous system regulation, grief, motherhood identity, and rebuilding trust in yourself
after the NICU.
Our work is collaborative, practical, and designed to go deeper than simply talking about what’s wrong.
Brainspotting & Trauma Intensives
For moms who want focused trauma work without committing to months of weekly therapy, extended Brainspotting or birth-trauma intensives give us more uninterrupted time to work with the material your nervous system is ready to process.
This can be especially helpful when there is a particular NICU memory, birth experience, medical event, or pattern of anxiety that continues to feel especially charged.
Integrative Postpartum Support + HTMA
For moms interested in the intersection of emotional health, nervous system resilience, and physical recovery, integrative work offers another path.
HTMA may be incorporated as one tool alongside personalized education and practical support around nourishment, minerals, rhythms, and the foundations that help your body feel resourced again.
