Online Infertility and Pregnancy Loss Therapy in Sacramento, CA
Therapy for the grief of infertility, failed IVF, miscarriage, stillbirth, and TFMR. Serving Sacramento, Roseville, El Dorado Hills, Elk Grove, Folsom, and surrounding communities.
Grief from pregnancy loss or infertility made your world smaller
Somewhere along your reproductive journey, you started avoiding things that were important to you: baby showers you make excuses to skip, the baby aisle in Target, and friends’ social media accounts you muted because every pregnancy announcement feels like a door closing on you.
It happened gradually. At first you were just protecting yourself for a day or two after a disappointing result. But somewhere along the way, that protection became permanent, and the life you're living now is so much smaller than the one you had before all of this started.
Maybe you've been through multiple rounds of treatment and the emotional cost has compounded to the point where you don't recognize your own reactions anymore: You snap at your partner over nothing, you cry in the shower, or you sit in work meetings and realize you haven't taken in a word anyone said in ten minutes.
Or maybe you had a loss that cracked something open, and the grief came in so fast that you didn't have time to figure out what to do with it. People said things that were supposed to help, but none of it landed, and now you just don't talk about it at all.
You're looking for a therapist because you're tired of shrinking. You want to be able to show up to your own life again, even while you're still figuring out what comes next.
Specialized therapy for infertility and pregnancy loss in Sacramento
Infertility and pregnancy loss create a grief that most people in your life won't fully grasp, and that you may have trouble making sense of yourself.
You might be mourning a pregnancy that lasted six weeks, or a transfer that didn't work, or a baby you held and named, or a pregnancy you ended because the diagnosis left you with no good options. The loss is real in every one of those situations, even when the people around you don't treat it that way.
I've trained specifically in how reproductive loss affects the brain and body.
You won't spend sessions explaining what a two-week wait does to you, or why a friend's pregnancy announcement can feel like a punch to the chest, or why your doctor's calm tone sometimes makes you want to scream.
That understanding is already in the room, which means your sessions focus on what this experience is doing to your daily life and how to help it change.
When understanding the grief hasn’t changed how your body experiences it
After enough cycles of hope followed by loss, your body starts treating hope itself as a threat.
That's why you tense up before the phone rings with results, why your heart races when someone asks a harmless question about kids, why you can't settle down even on days when nothing bad is happening.
Your body learned to stay on guard, and it hasn't gotten the message that it can stop.
You can understand all of this clearly and still feel the dread arrive on schedule. That's not a failure of insight or effort. It means the grief is living somewhere that insight alone can't reach, which is exactly what the therapeutic approaches I use are designed to work with.
How therapy for infertility and pregnancy loss can help
Your sister calls to tell you she's pregnant with her second, and you feel the familiar pang, but this time you stay on the phone. You ask her how she's feeling and you actually listen. After you hang up, you're sad for a while, and that's okay, but you also make dinner and call a friend and the evening moves forward instead of freezing in place.
You walk into a baby shower you almost didn't go to, and you're nervous, but you stay. You talk to people about things that have nothing to do with babies. Someone makes you laugh. You leave when you're ready, and on the drive home you feel something you haven't felt in a while: proud of yourself for showing up.
You're at your desk on a Monday and you actually finish something. Not just go through the motions, but think clearly, solve a problem, and close your laptop feeling like you contributed. The mental fog that's been sitting on you for months has started to thin.
You have a hard conversation with your partner about what you want to do next, and instead of shutting down or agreeing just to end it, you say what you're actually feeling. Your voice shakes, but the words come out. You go to bed that night knowing you were honest, and that feels like solid ground.
You accept an invitation you would have turned down three months ago. A dinner, a weekend trip, a birthday party. You go, and you enjoy parts of it, and the next morning you wake up feeling like your world got a little bigger overnight.
Online therapy works for infertility and pregnancy loss in Sacramento
Online therapy means you can have your session from wherever feels most private, whether that's home, your car during a lunch break, or a quiet room at work. No commute, no waiting room, and no rearranging your schedule.
I provide online infertility and pregnancy loss therapy in Sacramento, El Dorado Hills, Roseville, Folsom, Elk Grove, Davis, Rocklin, Citrus Heights, Rancho Cordova, Natomas, East Sacramento, Land Park, Midtown, and throughout California, including the East Bay Area and San Jose.
Who this is for
I work with Sacramento clients at every stage of the infertility and pregnancy loss experience: during treatment, after a failed cycle or transfer, after a miscarriage or stillbirth, after a TFMR, after deciding to stop trying, or years later when the grief resurfaces. I also work with people who are pregnant after loss and carrying fear through what everyone else treats as happy news.
This is a good fit if you want a therapist who specializes in reproductive loss and who uses approaches that work with your body and nervous system, not just your thoughts.
This is not a good fit if you're looking for couples therapy (I work with individuals), parenting support, or fertility coaching.
About Summer
I'm Summer Verhines, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW #68507) with a private telehealth practice serving Sacramento and all of California.
When you work with me, you're working with someone whose training is specifically in grief and trauma, and who uses approaches designed to help that grief actually move instead of just being talked about week after week.
I'm trained in EMDR, Brainspotting, and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), all body-based methods that work with your nervous system directly. That means we're not just understanding what happened, we're helping your body let go of the brace it's been holding, so you can make decisions from a clear place, feel safe enough to hope again, and stop living in a constant state of waiting.
Logistics
50-minute Sessions are $250.
I also offer 90-minute sessions for $375 and intensive sessions (2-4 hours) ranging from $500 to $1000 for people who want to work intensively.
I don't take insurance directly, but I can provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan covers that.
I am available early mornings, evenings, and weekends. I provide services online only.
Self-Schedule or Contact Me Below
For the quickest and most confidential option, you’re encouraged to book directly into my calendar by clicking the Self-Schedule Here button below. That button will take you to my HIPAA-compliant calendar where you may request an appointment. Once I confirm your appointment request (typically within 24 hours), I will email you the new client forms to digitally sign. Then, we will meet on your scheduled day.
If you have questions prior to scheduling, you can also use the contact form below, and I’ll reply within 48 business hours. If you don’t see a reply, please check your junk/spam folder.
I look forward to hearing from you!
— Summer Verhines, LCSW
Contact Summer
Frequently Asked Questions
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The first session is about me understanding what you've been through and how it's showing up in your life right now. I'll ask about your history, but I'm also paying attention to what's happening with your sleep, your energy, your relationships, and the situations you avoid. That tells me where to focus. You don't have to share everything in the first session.
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No. EMDR and ART don't require you to narrate your trauma over and over. We work with what's happening in your body and brain in ways that process the pain without needing you to retell the whole story.
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Yes. Many people find it helpful to have support during treatment rather than waiting until it ends. We can work on the emotional toll as you go.
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An early loss can carry just as much weight as a later one, especially after a long stretch of trying or multiple losses. Grief doesn't follow a gestational calendar.
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I charge $250 per session. I provide superbills, which are detailed receipts you can submit to your insurance company for potential out-of-network reimbursement. The amount you get back depends on your plan. Call the number on the back of your insurance card and ask about out-of-network mental health benefits to find out what's covered before your first session.
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Support groups can be a real source of comfort, and they can remind you that you're not the only person going through this. But they can't help you process what's stored in your nervous system or change the automatic responses that are running in the background. Trauma therapy can.