Infertility Counseling & Therapy in Massachusetts and Rhode Island
When trying to have a baby starts taking over everything
Infertility can turn something you expected to be exciting into appointments, medications, procedures, numbers, waiting, decisions, and uncertainty.
Your calendar may revolve around cycles and appointments. Your mood may change with every phone call or test result. Pregnancy announcements can bring emotions you never expected to experience.
And sometimes it feels like everyone else’s life is moving forward while yours is stuck on hold.
You can desperately want a baby and still be exhausted by everything it is taking to try to have one.
I’m Ashley Luongo, LMHC, a therapist specializing in infertility and perinatal mental health. I provide infertility counseling for adults in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and have completed specialized postgraduate training in infertility counseling.
The Emotional Impact of Infertility
Infertility doesn’t just affect your ability to become pregnant.
It can affect your relationships, identity, finances, sex life, friendships, family relationships, work, and the way you feel about your own body.
Infertility therapy can provide support for:
- Anxiety during fertility treatments
- IVF and IUI
- The two-week wait
- Unsuccessful treatment cycles
- Pregnancy announcements and baby showers
- Grief and disappointment
- Jealousy, resentment, or guilt
- Changes in intimacy
- Relationship stress
- Difficult fertility treatment decisions
- Financial stress related to treatment
- Feeling isolated from friends and family
- Setting boundaries around questions and advice
- Fear that treatment won’t work
- Deciding whether to continue fertility treatment
- Pregnancy loss during fertility treatment
There isn’t a “right” way to emotionally handle infertility.
Therapy With Someone Who Understands Infertility
When you’re going through fertility treatment, you shouldn’t have to spend half of your therapy appointment explaining the difference between an IUI and IVF before you can talk about how you’re feeling.
My practice focuses specifically on infertility, pregnancy loss, pregnancy after loss, and postpartum mental health, and I’ve completed a year-long postgraduate course in infertility counseling.
That means we can spend our sessions focusing on you rather than translating the world you’re navigating.
IVF & Fertility Treatment Support
Fertility treatment often involves cycles of hope, waiting, uncertainty, and disappointment.
One week you may be researching medications and monitoring follicles. The next you may be waiting for fertilization results or staring at your phone waiting for a call from your clinic.
Therapy provides somewhere to process those experiences without requiring you to stay positive.
You are allowed to be hopeful.
You are allowed to be scared.
And you are allowed to be completely exhausted by the process.
When Everyone Else Seems to Be Getting Pregnant
Pregnancy announcements can become complicated during infertility.
You can genuinely love someone and be happy for them while also feeling devastated for yourself.
Both things can exist at the same time.
Therapy can help you navigate pregnancy announcements, baby showers, family gatherings, social media, and the guilt that sometimes comes from wanting to protect yourself.
Infertility, Pregnancy Loss & Trying Again
For some people, infertility treatment also includes pregnancy loss.
When you’ve worked so hard to become pregnant, losing that pregnancy can add another layer of grief and trauma to an already exhausting experience.
If pregnancy loss is part of your story, therapy can provide space to process both the loss itself and the complicated decision of whether and when to begin trying again.
EMDR therapy may also be incorporated when fertility treatment, pregnancy loss, or medical experiences continue to feel traumatic.
Your Life Matters While You're Trying to Conceive
Infertility can make it feel like your real life will begin once you become pregnant.
But you’re living your life right now.
Therapy can help you make room for uncertainty without allowing infertility to become the only thing that defines this chapter of your life.
Related Support
Infertility Counseling in Massachusetts & Rhode Island
I provide specialized infertility therapy to adults in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including virtual therapy and in-person services in Franklin, MA.
If you’re looking for an infertility therapist who understands fertility treatment and the emotional complexity of trying to conceive, I would be glad to talk with you.