Online Infertility and Pregnancy Loss Therapy in San Diego, CA
Therapy for the grief of infertility, failed IVF, miscarriage, stillbirth, and TFMR. Serving San Diego, La Jolla, Del Mar, Carlsbad, Encinitas, and throughout San Diego County.
The grief nobody prepared you for
There's no funeral, no casserole from the neighbors, no bereavement leave. There's just you, carrying a loss that the people around you either don't know about or don't know what to do with. And the comments that are supposed to help, "at least you know you can get pregnant," "everything happens for a reason," "you can always try again," make you feel more alone, not less.
Maybe you've been through rounds of treatment, and each failed cycle has taken a piece of something you can't quite name. Maybe you had a pregnancy and lost it, and the world kept moving while you were still standing in the hallway of the clinic trying to remember where you parked. Maybe you're facing a decision about whether to keep trying, and you can't hear your own thinking through the noise of grief, fear, and pressure from every direction.
Whatever brought you here, you're looking for someone who understands this specific kind of loss, someone you don't have to educate or tiptoe around, so you can finally start to feel like yourself again.
Specialized therapy for infertility and pregnancy loss
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.
How body-based therapy helps when talking alone hasn't been enough
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 relax 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 your life can change through our work together
You check your phone after a blood draw and the number isn't what you hoped for. The disappointment lands, and you let yourself feel it, cry in the car for ten minutes, and then actually go to dinner with the friend you almost canceled on. You order something good. You laugh at her story about her terrible date. The evening has room for grief and for care sitting right next to it.
You're lying in bed on a Sunday morning and you notice your mind heading toward the familiar loop: the timeline, the odds, what to try next. Instead of following it down, you get up, make coffee, and take it outside. You sit there reading something that has nothing to do with fertility, and the morning feels like it belongs to you.
A coworker brings her new baby to the office and everyone gathers around. You walk over, hold the baby for a minute, and feel something tender. You hand the baby back, sit down at your desk, and finish the project you've been putting off all week. You leave work that day feeling capable and present instead of counting down until you can get to your car.
You sit across from your doctor and actually participate in the conversation about next steps. You ask the questions you've been holding onto. You push back on something that doesn't feel right. You leave that appointment with a plan you had a hand in making, and you trust yourself to carry it.
You realize you spent a whole weekend doing things that had nothing to do with trying to get pregnant. You planned a trip. You signed up for a pottery class. You started a book and actually wanted to know what happened next. Your life is filling back in, and you're choosing to be part of it.
Why online therapy works for infertility and pregnancy loss in San Diego
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, no scheduling around San Diego traffic.
I provide online infertility and pregnancy loss therapy in San Diego, La Jolla, Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad, Poway, Scripps Ranch, Rancho Bernardo, Carmel Valley, Mission Hills, North Park, Chula Vista, and throughout California, including Los Angeles and Irvine.
Who this works well for
I work with people 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 comes back up. 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
Therapist for Infertility & Pregnancy Loss in San Diego
I'm Summer Verhines, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW #68507) with a private telehealth practice serving 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.
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.