Birth & Labor trauma Therapy In San Antonio
When Healthy Baby Doesn’t Mean You’re Okay
For the mom who got a healthy baby, and a story that still doesn’t sit right.
You did everything right.
You planned. You nourished. You nested. You glowed. And then birth happened, in a way your body and heart didn’t choose.
Now your baby’s healthy, thriving even, and you still feel off-kilter. You replay the room. The monitors. The faces. The rush. The decisions no one should have to make that fast.
You try to be grateful, and you are, but you also feel shaken, hyper-alert, guilty, and unsure how to talk about it when everyone else says: But you have a healthy baby.
Birth trauma lives in the body as much as the mind.
It’s postpartum trauma, a form of perinatal trauma that can leave your nervous system stuck in survival mode, scanning for danger, struggling to rest, unsure when safety returned.
You’re not ungrateful. You’re a survivor of something your body still remembers.
Birth trauma can bring up layers of earlier loss, fear, or attachment pain. You can learn more about how I approach those roots through Attachment and Grief & Loss.
Explore birth & labor trauma therapy in San Antonio + online across Texas.
The Story You Hoped For, The Story You Lived
You planned and prepared, the classes, the books, the podcasts, the breathing, the birth plan, the nursery.
You ate well, nested, felt that quiet glow everyone commented on. The story you were promised was beautiful and full of wonder.
The story you lived was different.
The rush. The machines. Decisions made faster than your heart could process. NICU. Feeling unheard. A blur you still replay in sharp detail.
You’re grateful your baby is here.
And you’re also carrying shock, grief, and a body that hasn’t settled. No book prepped you for this version of birth, and it’s okay to say it out loud.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
You wake at night to check breathing, even when your baby’s sleeping through.
Hospital sounds. Antiseptic smells. The NICU exit sign. They flash in your mind without warning.
You feel jumpy, on edge, tearful out of nowhere.
You avoid appointments, certain hallways, certain conversations that bring it all back.
You tell yourself you should be over it by now, but your body seems to disagree.
You feel disconnected from yourself, your partner, or friends and loved ones who just don’t get it.
You’re afraid if you relax or feel joy, something bad will happen.
Traumatic birth is real, whether it was an emergency C-section, hemorrhage, NICU stay, loss of control, dismissal by staff, unanticipated interventions, feeling unheard, or the slow burn of not-knowing.
Having a healthy baby and holding trauma at the same time doesn’t make you ungrateful. It makes you human.
How Birth Trauma Shows Up (Weeks, Months, or Years Later)
What birth trauma can look like (postpartum weeks, months, or even years later) long after the delivery room:
Intrusive memories or flashbacks, moments that feel like being pulled back into the birth itself.
Hypervigilance, startle, or disrupted sleep, as your nervous system stays on alert.
Anxiety, dread, or panic in medical settings or at seemingly random cues.
Guilt, shame, self-blame, the relentless I should’ve or If only loops.
Decision fatigue and second-guessing, especially around your body or your baby’s safety.
Numbness, detachment, or disconnection, feeling like you’re watching life happen from the outside.
Strain in bonding intimacy, or daily connection, often mixed with irritability or overwhelm.
None of these responses mean you’re failing. They mean your body and mind are still processing an experience that was too much, too fast, for too long.
Why Therapy Now
Because powering through motherhood isn’t the plan. Therapy offers a grounded space to name what happened, in your body, in your mind, and in the room that day, so the story stops ruling you.
Plenty of time has passed now but you’re still worried. You may feel overwhelmed, anxious, and easily startle or disconnected entirely. And, it all feels connected to the day your baby was born, and everything that happened that day.
When Birth Trauma Includes the Loss of Your Baby
For many, the heartbreak is living with a healthy baby and not feeling okay.
For others, the heartbreak is different, and even harder to name: your baby did not survive.
For some mothers, birth trauma carries not only the shock of a difficult delivery but also the unbearable grief of losing a baby.
In those moments, you may feel shattered, isolated, undone, and left with images that won’t stop replaying: the delivery room, the monitors, the silence.
Friends and family may not know what to say, and sometimes offer comments meant to comfort but that cut deep and miss the mark, like, You can try again.
When you’ve lost a child, it’s not about trying again.
It’s about grieving this baby, this birth. And honoring both the love and the grief you carry for your baby.
In therapy, your grief and trauma are both tended to, gently, without rush. Together we’ll work with the memories, body sensations, and decisions that still haunt you, while tending to the ache of loss that words can’t capture.
Through trauma-informed approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting, somatic work, attachment-focused therapy, and trauma-informed hypnotherapy, we create room for both love and grief to exist, without you having to carry them alone.
You did nothing wrong. Your love for your baby, and your grief in their absence, are both valid.
Birth trauma therapy after infant loss is a place where your baby’s memory is cherished, and your story is held with care.
Therapy That Helps You Integrate Birth Trauma Across Body, Mind, and Memory
I’m a depth-oriented, attachment-focused trauma therapist. We’ll move at your nervous system’s pace with research-backed approaches that help your brain and body integrate what happened, gently and at a tempo that works with your system.
EMDR Therapy - Reprocess the stuck moments so the memory becomes a memory, not a live wire.
Brainspotting - Access and release deep activation your mind can’t think its way out of, allowing for deeper trauma integration.
Somatic & nervous-system work - Support nervous system regulation, reduce internal alarm, and rebuild felt safety and stability in your body.
Parts-work & relational depth - Work with the parts of you carrying guilt, self-blame, or the I failed my baby story, giving them the compassion and repair they needed.
Attachment-based therapy - Strengthen secure attachment repair with yourself, your baby, and your partner while rebuilding trust in your instincts and decisions.
Trauma-informed hypnotherapy - Calm physiological responses and foster comfort, reassurance, and emotional regulation through research-aligned clinical hypnosis.
No minimizing. No moralizing. Just clear, compassionate, empowering support for your birth trauma healing, whether weeks or years later, and a story that deserves care.
Explore EMDR Therapy, Brainspotting, and Trauma-informed Hypnotherapy as part of your birth trauma care.
What Sessions Feel Like
Attuned. Experienced. Warm. We’ll track what your nervous system as you revisit small parts of your story and build capacity to stay present as it unfolds.
There’s no pressure to retell everything at once.
In sessions, expect:
Regulation (breath, grounding, orienting) - to feel more centered in your body.
Small parts of your story - enough to move, not overwhelm.
Clear choices each session - process-focused talk therapy, EMDR, Brainspotting, depth-oriented, or trauma-informed hypnotherapy.
Attachment work woven throughout - repairing ruptures shaped by your birth experience, and relearning trust in your body, what you know, your choices, and your self-worth.
If earlier trauma surfaces (childhood, sexual, medical, religious or spiritual) - we’ll map the connections and keep the work contained while creating a clear plan to address those patterns.
What Changes You May Notice Along the Way
Less reactivity to reminders; more ease in your body and fewer spikes of fear.
Sleep that isn’t ruled by fear, with nights stretching into real rest vs. on-alert dozing.
Confidence in your parenting and decisions.
Ability to remember the birth without spiraling.
Reconnection and bonding that deepen, with yourself, your baby and other children, and the people who love you.
Joy in ordinary moments, without the fear that feeling good invites loss.
FAQ: Birth & Labor Trauma Therapy
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It might be. Many people meet criteria after a frightening or disempowering birth or NICU experience. We’ll discuss whether PTSD fits and what’s useful for you.
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Absolutely. Unprocessed birth memories can stay live for a long time. EMDR, Brainspotting, and Trauma-Informed Clinical Hypnosis are effective even when the birth was years ago; the goal is for the memory to become just that, a memory, without spikes or spirals.
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No. We move in small, tolerable pieces and steps. You keep control over what you share and when. We resource your nervous system first, then work the material at a pace that’s steady, not overwhelming.
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We can. We’ll tailor session focus and between-session micro-practices to your energy, sleep, and schedule. You don’t have to be fully rested or have everything figured out to begin.
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The aim isn’t to relive; it’s to reprocess. We prepare first, then target the stuck points with anchors so your system can process without tipping into shutdown or panic. You can pause or shift gears anytime.
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Yes, trauma-informed hypnotherapy is one of my specialties. I often use clinical hypnosis to strengthen inner reassurance and calm for calmer responses to specific cues. No scripts you have to perform, no loss of control.
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That can be very common. We’ll map how it connects to your birth experience and keep the work contained, then decide together whether to address those patterns within this course of therapy or as a defined next phase.
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In-person and online in San Antonio and online across Texas. EMDR, hypnotherapy, and Brainspotting are available both in-person and via telehealth when clinically appropriate.
Presence and joy no longer have to feel like you're tempting fate.
Finally Putting Words to the Story That Won’t Stop Replaying
You think you failed. You didn’t.
Birth can be beautiful; it can also be frightening, disorienting, and grief-soaked. You’re allowed to mourn the birth you hoped for and tend to the one you lived.
Here, your experience won’t be minimized or compared. We’ll name it, process it, and bring meaning to what’s been carried, so it no longer rules how you move through the world or think about the future.
➳ Prefer meeting online? I work with clients across Texas.
Ready to Get Started?
Let’s Work Together