Are you struggling with fear or anxiety around pregnancy or birth?

When I look back at my own fear, I can see now that it did not appear the day I thought about getting pregnant. It had been building quietly for most of my life. I just had no idea it was happening. That is the thing about this fear: by the time you notice it,…

One of the things that frightened me most, once I understood my own fear, was the thought of passing it on. I did not want to hand my daughter a fear of her own body before she ever had a chance to know it differently. That thought is what made me certain this work was…

The day I found the word tokophobia, something in me unclenched. For the first time, my fear was not a personal defect. It was a thing, with a name, that other women had too. That is the strange power of a word: it can turn “what is wrong with me?” into “oh, this is what…

For years, I genuinely believed I just was not maternal. It was only later that I understood I had not actually chosen anything. My fear had quietly made the decision for me, and dressed it up as a personality trait. I want to be careful here, because some women truly do not want children and…

I hear from younger and younger women now, often before they are anywhere near thinking about babies, already carrying a heavy dread about the whole idea of it. When I started this work, the fear tended to surface in pregnancy. Now I am watching it take root in women who are barely out of their…