Infertility & IVF Therapy in St. Louis, Missouri & Online Throughout Illinois
Therapy for infertility, IVF, pregnancy loss, and reproductive mental health
St. Louis, Missouri ● Online Therapy in Chicago & Throughout Missouri and Illinois
When growing your family doesn't go as planned, it can feel like your whole world is on hold.
Infertility can begin to affect nearly every part of your life—your relationships, identity, friendships, work, body, and sense of what you thought your future would look like. If you're navigating infertility, IVF, fertility treatment, or pregnancy loss, you may find yourself moving between hope, anxiety, grief, anger, jealousy, and exhaustion.
I provide infertility and IVF therapy for women and men in St. Louis and online throughout Missouri and Illinois who are navigating fertility treatment, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful IVF cycles, relationship strain, and the emotional uncertainty of family building.
Specialized Therapy for Infertility, IVF, and Pregnancy Loss
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When Infertility Starts to Take Over Your Life
Infertility can begin to affect nearly every part of your life—your relationships, identity, friendships, work, and the way you imagined becoming a mother.
You may feel consumed by treatment, disconnected from others, frustrated with your body, or overwhelmed by how little control you have over what happens next.
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Anxiety During IVF and Fertility Treatment
IVF, IUI, and other fertility treatments can make life feel like a constant cycle of appointments, monitoring, waiting, and uncertainty.
Anxiety can build around each new result—from embryo development and transfers to pregnancy tests—leaving you feeling as though your life revolves around what happens next.
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Failed IVF Cycles, Embryo Transfers, and Fertility Grief
An unsuccessful IVF cycle or failed embryo transfer can bring a particular kind of grief—the loss of hope you had attached to that attempt and the future you had begun to imagine.
You may find yourself grieving while already being asked to make decisions about what comes next.
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Pregnancy Loss After Infertility
Pregnancy loss after infertility can feel especially complicated after everything it took to become pregnant.
Alongside the loss itself, you may be grieving the time, treatment, hope, and sense of safety you had invested in the pregnancy.
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When Infertility Affects Your Relationship
Infertility can place strain on even strong relationships, especially when you and your partner cope differently or disagree about treatment and next steps.
You may feel disconnected, resentful, or alone at a time when you most want to feel understood.
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Deciding What Comes Next in Your Fertility Journey
There may come a point when you're faced with decisions you never expected to make—whether to continue IVF, try another embryo transfer, consider egg or embryo donation, explore surrogacy, or stop treatment.
Therapy can provide space to understand what each possibility means to you as you decide what the next step toward becoming a mother might look like.
Why Work With Joanna
Infertility and pregnancy loss are more than medical experiences—they are deeply emotional ones. They can affect your identity, relationships, sense of control, and the way you imagined becoming a parent.
I have advanced training in reproductive and maternal mental health, perinatal mental health, and third-party reproduction. My work is grounded in relational psychodynamic psychotherapy, helping you understand not only what you are experiencing, but how infertility and family building are affecting your emotional life, relationships, and sense of self.
My own path to motherhood included third-party reproduction, giving me a personal understanding that family building is rarely just a medical journey. It can hold grief, hope, uncertainty, difficult decisions, and emotions that are not always easy to talk about—even with the people closest to you.
You deserve a space where the emotional experience of building your family matters, too.
Who I Work With
Infertility Therapy May Be Helpful If You're:
Navigating IVF, IUI, or other fertility treatments
Experiencing anxiety during fertility treatment or while waiting for results
Coping with a failed embryo transfer or unsuccessful treatment cycle
Grieving a pregnancy loss or unsuccessful IVF cycle
Grieving a pregnancy loss or unsuccessful fertility treatment
Feeling consumed by infertility or uncertain about the future
Experiencing jealousy, anger, guilt, or isolation as others become pregnant
Feeling disconnected from your partner or experiencing relationship strain
Struggling with a loss of control or difficulty trusting your body
Deciding whether to continue fertility treatment
Considering surrogacy, egg donation, embryo donation, or other forms of third-party reproduction
Infertility and pregnancy loss affect far more than your ability to conceive.
They can change how you see yourself, your relationships, your body, and your future.
You may find yourself wondering:
Why is this happening to me?
Will I ever become a mother?
How much more can I handle?
Why does everyone else seem to get pregnant so easily?
How do I keep hoping after another loss?
The grief of infertility is often invisible.
How Therapy Can Help
You don't need someone to tell you to "just stay positive."
Therapy offers something different — a space where your grief, fear, anger, disappointment, and hope can all exist together.
Together, we'll create space for these emotions, while helping you better understand how this experience is affecting your relationships, your sense of self, and your emotional well-being.
Our work isn't about taking away uncertainty.
It’s about helping you understand what the uncertainty, grief, and loss of control bring up for you—and finding a way to move through it without losing yourself or your relationships in the process.
Common Questions About Infertility, Pregnancy Loss & Therapy
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Yes. Infertility affects far more than your ability to conceive. It can impact your mental health, relationships, sense of identity, and hope for the future.
Therapy provides a space to process the grief, uncertainty, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion that often accompany infertility while helping you navigate the next steps in your family-building journey.
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There is no "right" way to grieve a miscarriage. Many women experience sadness, anger, guilt, numbness, anxiety, or fear about trying again.
Therapy can help you process your loss, make sense of your emotions, and move forward at your own pace without minimizing your experience.
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Infertility often affects relationships in different ways. You and your partner may cope differently, communicate differently, or have different emotional needs during treatment and loss. You also may feel disconnected from family and friends during this time.
Therapy can help you understand these differences, improve communication, and strengthen your relationships during a difficult season.
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Yes. A failed embryo transfer often brings profound grief that others may not recognize.
Therapy provides space to process the disappointment, uncertainty, and difficult emotions that can follow while supporting you as you consider your next steps.
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You don't have to wait until you're in crisis. Many women begin therapy during fertility treatment, after a miscarriage, following a failed IVF cycle, while considering third-party reproduction, or simply when the emotional weight of the journey becomes difficult to carry alone.
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IVF can create a cycle of anticipation, uncertainty, and waiting that makes it difficult to think about much else.
Therapy can provide space to manage the anxiety surrounding appointments, test results, embryo development, transfers, and decisions about what comes next. It can also help you understand how the loss of control inherent in fertility treatment is affecting your relationships, sense of self, and emotional well-being.
REASONS TO BOOK
REASONS TO BOOK
CLINICALLY TRAINED
You’re drawn to therapy that goes beyond symptom relief—a space with a curious, reflective, and empathetic therapist who helps you uncover the unconscious origins of your thoughts, feelings, and relational patterns, and understand how they continue to shape your present experience.
DEEP, INSIGHT-ORIENTED APPROACH
Therapy can be challenging work, and having a skilled, clinically trained therapist by your side makes all the difference. After transforming my own career from attorney to therapist, I completed several years of advanced clinical training at both the St. Louis and Chicago Psychoanalytic Institutes. This depth of training allows me to look beyond symptoms alone, helping you understand the underlying patterns that keep you feeling stuck.
WARM AND APPROACHABLE
Starting therapy can feel vulnerable. My goal is to make the process feel approachable by creating a space where you feel comfortable being yourself, asking difficult questions, and exploring what matters most to you.
Support & Resources for Your Fertility Journey
