A Sage & Stone Holistic Counseling Reflection

Pregnancy is often painted as a time of celebration, a season of preparation, a pathway to joy. We buy tiny clothes, dream about names, build nurseries, and make playlists for labor. We imagine how we’ll meet our babies—not how we’ll fight to keep them safe. Not how we’ll have to surrender the vision of how we thought it would go.But sometimes, pregnancy becomes something else. A storm we never saw coming.
For many, that storm has a name: pre-eclampsia.

When Your Body Sounds the Alarm

Pre-eclampsia doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t wait until you’re ready. It shows up in a blur—blood pressure spikes, headaches, swelling, sudden trips to the hospital, unfamiliar words whispered between doctors, an uneasy stillness in your gut.

Maybe you didn’t even feel sick. Maybe no one really explained what was happening. Maybe you didn’t realize until you were already being admitted, already hooked to monitors, already told that delivery might need to happen—now.

And in those moments, your body becomes the battleground. The vessel that was supposed to carry life safely suddenly feels unpredictable, even dangerous. You may feel like your body betrayed you. Or like you betrayed your baby.

Let me pause you right there:
You did not fail. You are not broken.
You responded with love, courage, and instinct in a moment that demanded everything from you.

The Invisible Layers of Trauma

At Sage & Stone, we hold sacred space for the experiences that linger long after the hospital stay ends. For the invisible wounds—the ones that surface in quiet moments, in flashbacks, in tears that catch you off guard when you hear a monitor beep or smell antiseptic.

Pre-eclampsia is not just a medical condition. It is a rupture. A fracture in what was supposed to be a joyful journey. And that rupture can leave behind:

• Grief for the pregnancy or birth you didn’t get to have
  
• Shame that your body couldn’t carry to full term
  
• Fear of becoming pregnant again
  
• Hypervigilance around your health and your baby’s
  
• Disconnection from your own body or from your child
  
• Loneliness in a world that says “you’re both fine now”
  

These are normal responses to an abnormal experience. And they deserve space, tenderness, and care.

Healing is Not Linear

Some days, you might feel like you’ve moved on. Other days, a sound, a memory, or a photo might undo you. That’s okay.

Healing is not a straight line. It’s a spiral—a coming back, again and again, to the places that hurt, until they begin to soften.

At Sage & Stone, our approach to healing is holistic and trauma-informed. We believe your nervous system needs tending just as much as your heart does. We offer gentle tools to help you begin to rebuild your sense of safety and trust:

• Grounding practices for anxiety and flashbacks
  
• Mind-body approaches like breathwork, yoga, and guided meditation
  
• Talk therapy that honors your lived experience and emotional truth
  
• Support for NICU trauma, postpartum depression, or future pregnancy fears

Reclaiming Your Story

Pre-eclampsia may be part of your story, but it does not define your worth, your strength, or your motherhood. You are not just a survivor—you are a mother who walked through the fire. You made impossible decisions with love in your heart. You faced what no one should have to face. And now, you’re still here. Breathing. Loving. Showing up.

If you’re ready, we’re here to walk with you through the next part of your journey—the healing part. The part where you learn to trust again. Where you reclaim the parts of yourself that got lost in the storm. Where you let your body rest, let your heart speak, and let your story be witnessed with compassion.

You Are Worthy of Support

You don’t have to carry the weight of this alone. Whether your baby is in your arms, in your heart, or still yet to come—you deserve to be seen, supported, and held.

Because healing doesn’t happen in silence. It happens in connection.
And we are here to connect with you—body, mind, and spirit.

With care and compassion,
Sage & Stone Holistic Counseling