--- title: "Fear of Giving Birth Again | Harlan Therapy" description: "Therapy in Virginia for women who are frightened of giving birth again after a traumatic birth. Brainspotting and somatic work, telehealth statewide." lang: en json-ld: | [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#leah-harlan", "name": "Leah Harlan", "honorificSuffix": "MA, LPC", "jobTitle": "Licensed Professional Counselor", "telephone": "804-395-5362", "worksFor": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Harlan Therapy LLC", "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#harlan-therapy" }, "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "6610 Commons Drive, Suite C", "addressLocality": "Prince George", "addressRegion": "VA", "postalCode": "23875", "addressCountry": "US" }, "areaServed": { "@type": "State", "name": "Virginia" } }, { "@type": [ "MedicalBusiness", "ProfessionalService" ], "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#harlan-therapy", "url": "https://leahharlan.com/", "name": "Harlan Therapy", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://leahharlan.com/logo-harlan-therapy.png", "width": 512, "height": 512 }, "image": "https://leahharlan.com/og-harlan-therapy.png", "telephone": "804-395-5362", "priceRange": "$300 - $2,500", "founder": { "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#leah-harlan" }, "knowsAbout": [ "Birth trauma", "Traumatic birth recovery", "Perinatal and postpartum anxiety", "Pregnancy after loss", "Brainspotting", "Internal Family Systems", "Somatic therapy" ], "availableService": { "@type": "MedicalTherapy", "name": "Birth trauma therapy" }, "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "6610 Commons Drive, Suite C", "addressLocality": "Prince George", "addressRegion": "VA", "postalCode": "23875", "addressCountry": "US" }, "areaServed": { "@type": "State", "name": "Virginia" } }, { "@type": "Service", "serviceType": "Psychotherapy for birth trauma and the perinatal window", "provider": { "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#harlan-therapy" }, "areaServed": { "@type": "State", "name": "Virginia" } } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Service", "name": "Therapy for fear of childbirth", "serviceType": "Therapy for fear of childbirth", "url": "https://leahharlan.com/specialties/fear-of-birth-and-pregnancy-after-trauma", "provider": { "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#harlan-therapy" }, "areaServed": { "@type": "State", "name": "Virginia" } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "MedicalWebPage", "name": "Fear of Giving Birth Again | Harlan Therapy", "description": "Therapy in Virginia for women who are frightened of giving birth again after a traumatic birth. Brainspotting and somatic work, telehealth statewide.", "url": "https://leahharlan.com/specialties/fear-of-birth-and-pregnancy-after-trauma", "inLanguage": "en-US", "about": { "@type": "MedicalCondition", "name": "Fear Of Birth And Pregnancy After Trauma" }, "audience": { "@type": "Patient", "geographicArea": { "@type": "State", "name": "Virginia" } }, "provider": { "@id": "https://leahharlan.com/#harlan-therapy" } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://leahharlan.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Specialties", "item": "https://leahharlan.com/specialties" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "The thought of doing it again frightens you", "item": "https://leahharlan.com/specialties/fear-of-birth-and-pregnancy-after-trauma" } ] } ] --- Accepting new patients in-person or virtually across Virginia. [Harlan Therapy](/) - [Birth Trauma](/specialties/birth-trauma) - [Who I Help](/who-i-help) - [Services](/services) - [Individual Therapy](/services/individual-therapy) - [Therapy Intensives](/services/therapy-intensives) - [Rates](/rates-and-insurance) - [Facts](/faq) - [Blog](/blog) - [Resources](/resources) - [About](/about) [Request a consultation ](/contact#intake)Menu ![Daylight through an arched doorway, therapy for fear of birth and pregnancy after trauma in Virginia](/assets/spec-arch-1920-BXPlnrgU.webp) Specialty # The thought of doing it again frightens you Your baby is here. Your baby is well. And when anyone mentions another one, something in you says no before you have had a chance to think. This is not a page about loss. Your child is alive and thriving and you would not undo a moment of having her. That is exactly what makes this so hard to explain to anybody, including yourself. ## The Body Answers First Someone asks whether you will have another. It is a light question, asked kindly, usually at a table with other people at it. And before you have formed an opinion your chest tightens and your face does something you have to correct. You give an answer about timing, or money, or work. Then you sit with the real answer for the rest of the evening, which is that you cannot imagine walking back into that building and letting it happen to you again. That is not indecision. That is a body that took the last time seriously. ## Wanting Another Child and Being Terrified of the Birth These two things sit in the same woman at the same time, and they do not cancel out. You picture a second child in the house and it makes sense to you. You picture the hours that would have to happen first and your whole system refuses. So you stall. You produce a reason why this is not the year, and you produce it fluently, and it is even partly true. Then next year you produce another one. From the outside it looks like a considered decision. From the inside it is a door you keep not opening. ## If You Are Already Pregnant Again Then the fear has a date on it, and that is a particular kind of pressure. Everyone around you is delighted. You are counting weeks, not toward a baby, but toward a delivery you have already lived once and did not survive intact. Appointments are hard. The building is hard. Being asked to lie back on the same kind of bed is hard. And you are supposed to be doing all of this while managing a toddler and appearing perfectly well, because nobody wants to hear that a pregnancy is frightening when the last one produced a healthy child. There is real work to do here, and it is better done before the third trimester than in the last two weeks. Not so that you can be talked into calm, but so that your body is not walking in braced from the first minute. ## If You Have Quietly Decided Not to Decide Some women never say no out loud. They simply let the years go by, and one day they notice the age gap has closed the question for them. What sits underneath that is grief, and it rarely gets called grief because nothing visibly happened. But you had a picture of your family. Two children, maybe three, a full table, siblings who would have each other after you are gone. And that picture is being taken from you by something that happened in a room in one afternoon. That is a loss, and it is happening quietly, and you are allowed to mourn it. ## The Part You Cannot Say Out Loud Your husband asks and you cannot explain it to him. Your mother says you will feel differently in time. A friend, pregnant with her third, tells you the second one is easier. Everyone is being nice and none of it lands, and every conversation ends with you doing the reassuring. The isolation in this is specific. It is not that no one is listening. It is that the only accurate sentence, which is I am afraid it will happen again and I do not think I would come back from it, sounds so extreme when spoken that you would rather keep it. So you keep it, for years, and it grows in there. ## What We Would Do About It We go to the birth itself, because the fear is not really about a future birth. It is the last one, still live, projected forward. Brainspotting lets us work with where that is actually held rather than talking around it, and somatic work gives your body somewhere to put what it has been bracing against since that day. Internal Family Systems matters here for a particular reason. The part of you that is refusing is not an obstacle. It is the part that was paying attention when things went wrong, and it has been standing at that door ever since. We listen to it rather than override it. I am not here to move you toward another pregnancy and I have no stake in what you decide. Some women go on to conceive. Some conclude they are complete, and find they can hold that without guilt. Both of those are real endings. Related Pages [ ### Birth Trauma Read more ](/specialties/birth-trauma) [ ### Pregnancy After Loss Read more ](/specialties/pregnancy-after-loss) [ ### Perinatal Anxiety Read more ](/specialties/perinatal-anxiety) [ ### Brainspotting Read more ](/approach/brainspotting) ## You Can Talk About This Here The consultation is free, and you do not have to have decided anything about another baby before you make it. ## Tell Me What Is Going On A few lines is enough. Please keep clinical details out of the form, and we will talk properly when I reach you. First name Last name Email Phone What brings you here right now Preferred contact method text email phone Session preference Telehealth In person I agree to receive text messages from Harlan Therapy about my inquiry and appointments. Consent is not a condition of receiving services. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help. See the [Privacy Policy](/privacy-policy) and [Terms](/sms-terms). Harlan Therapy sends only messages related to your inquiry and your appointments. We never send marketing or promotional texts. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Send my inquiry Harlan Therapy 6610 Commons Drive, Suite C Prince George, Virginia 23875 [804-395-5362](tel:8043955362) [Request a consultation ](/contact#intake)![Proud member of the ABB Collective, A Brighter Birth](/__l5e/assets-v1/a0c7ddc9-14e0-4b02-a93f-76b9dec6cdaa/abb-collective-badge.webp) Specialties - [Birth Trauma](/specialties/birth-trauma) - [The Motherhood Wound](/specialties/the-motherhood-wound) - [Traumatic Birth Recovery](/specialties/traumatic-birth-recovery) - [Perinatal Anxiety](/specialties/perinatal-anxiety) - [Postpartum Anxiety](/specialties/postpartum-anxiety) - [Postpartum Depression](/specialties/postpartum-depression) - [Pregnancy After Loss](/specialties/pregnancy-after-loss) - [See All Specialties](/specialties) Who I Help - [Who I Help](/who-i-help) - [Professional Mothers](/who-i-help/professional-mothers) - [First Generation Professionals](/who-i-help/first-generation-professionals) - [Therapists and Helping Professionals](/who-i-help/therapists-and-helping-professionals) Approach - [How I Work](/approach) - [Brainspotting](/approach/brainspotting) - [Internal Family Systems](/approach/internal-family-systems) - [Somatic Therapy](/approach/somatic-therapy) Service Areas - [Service Areas](/service-areas) - [Northern Virginia](/service-areas/northern-virginia) - [Richmond](/service-areas/richmond) - [Virginia Beach](/service-areas/virginia-beach) - [Charlottesville](/service-areas/charlottesville) - [Telehealth Across Virginia](/telehealth-in-virginia) - [Prince George Office](/therapy-in-prince-george) - [The Tri-Cities](/therapy-in-the-tri-cities) Practice - [Rates and Insurance](/rates-and-insurance) - [Private Pay in Virginia](/rates-and-insurance/private-pay-therapy-in-virginia) - [Fees and Facts](/faq) - [Contact](/contact) - [For Providers](/refer) - [Blog](/blog) - [Resources](/resources) - [Privacy Policy](/privacy-policy) - [SMS Terms](/sms-terms) - [Good Faith Estimate](/good-faith-estimate) Services - [All Services](/services) - [Individual Therapy](/services/individual-therapy) - [Therapy Intensives](/services/therapy-intensives) - [Child and Adolescent Therapy](/services/child-and-adolescent-therapy) - [Family Therapy](/services/family-therapy) - [About Leah](/about) * * * Serving Prince George, the Tri-Cities, and by telehealth [across Virginia](/service-areas). - [Privacy Policy](/privacy-policy) - [Terms](/terms) - [SMS Terms](/sms-terms) - [Disclaimers](/disclaimers) - [Good Faith Estimate](/good-faith-estimate) - [Cookie Policy](/cookie-policy) Harlan Therapy LLC Leah Harlan, MA, LPC · Licensed Professional Counselor #0701013658 (Virginia) If you are in crisis, call or text 988. In person in the Tri-Cities area and by telehealth throughout Virginia. This website is informational and is not therapy, and it is not a place to share clinical details. If you are in crisis, call or text 988, or call 911. Therapy outcomes vary from person to person and no particular result is promised or guaranteed. © 2026 Harlan Therapy. All rights reserved.