Finding out you are expecting a baby is a time filled with such a wide range of emotions: excitement, fear, worry, happiness. It doesn’t take long to begin dreaming, hoping, and planning for how things will go. You begin thinking about nursery colors, baby names, baby shower decorations, hospital delivery plans, and the day you will take that bundle of joy home. 

Evolving Expectations

For any woman who has found herself pregnant during the COVID-19 pandemic, expectations have had to be adjusted based on the requirements and guidelines of the doctors’ offices and delivery settings. And while these adjustments have required pregnant women in New Orleans to shift their expectations, there has been a fair amount of time to process and accept those changes and disappointments. 

But one thing that no expectant mom was prepared to deal with is the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. For women who are still pregnant and for those who are newly postpartum, life is currently filled with so many unknowns, so much worry, anxiety, and sadness. Where you are in your pregnancy or postpartum experience may impact the intensity of those emotions and the types of questions you find your anxious mind mulling over.

“Where am I going to establish care with a new OB-GYN?”

“In what hospital – and in what state – am I going to delivery my baby now?”

“Where will I be bringing my new baby when we leave the hospital? I can’t go home yet.”

Giving Yourself Postpartum Support

The prenatal and postpartum time periods often cause anxiety for many women, but the stress of a natural disaster like Hurricane Ida can have a huge impact on postpartum anxiety and depression. Here are five ways to help you cope with the anxiety or sadness you may be experiencing as you prepare for birth after Hurricane Ida.

Let Yourself Grieve

In the aftermath of a disaster like Hurricane Ida, it can be so easy to minimize our emotions by comparing our own pain and suffering with someone else’s. We may feel so sad or extremely anxious, but we may quickly disqualify our emotional responses by pointing to someone else who “has it so much worse than I do.” 

Regardless of what someone else’s experience has been as a result of the storm, your emotions and feelings are your own, and it is important to allow yourself to experience them. You are experiencing a sense of loss, and it is important to acknowledge those feelings and offer yourself compassion for how hard this time is that you are going through. 

Ask Others for Support

Pregnancy is a time when we often need additional support, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, the level of support needed may have grown exponentially. It can feel really difficult to know how to reach out to other people for emotional, mental, or physical support when we know they are going through a challenging time themselves. But one of the beautiful things that comes in the recovery process of a disaster like Hurricane Ida is the way people reach out to support their neighbors and community. 

If you need someone to check on your house because it’s too hard to go there right now, ask for help. If you need a place to store certain things while damage is repaired, don’t shy away from telling someone how you could use their help. If there are specific baby items you need or questions you have, many of the local New Orleans’ Mom Facebook groups have been amazing places to connect and find support from other current or soon-to-be moms. Even the support of a stranger can be more meaningful than you may have ever dreamed of.

Talk With Others About How This Isn’t What You Expected

I absolutely guarantee that being pregnant or giving birth during a hurricane recovery process is nothing you ever envisioned. Give yourself permission to open up to your spouse, friends, and family about how you are feeling during this time. Allow yourself to experience whatever emotions arise: grief, sadness, disappointment, anger, frustration. It can feel daunting and even exhausting to think about opening up to someone else about these intense feelings, but it is important for those closest to us to know exactly how we are feeling. 

Allowing yourself to open up and share these feelings can help to release the anxious thoughts and feelings and help give a name to the emotions you are experiencing. In sharing this with others, it also gives them an awareness of the emotional struggles you are currently experiencing, which can help them be more able and willing to support you.

Talk With Your Doctor

One of the biggest triggers for anxiety is the unknown. And right now, there is a lot that is unknown and uncertain in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. While your OB-GYN probably won’t be able to tell you exactly what is going to happen, having an open and honest conversation with them regarding your concerns about either your prenatal care, delivery plan, or postpartum care is extremely important. They want to make sure you are as healthy as possible during your pregnancy and postpartum experience, and having high anxiety and worrying over what the plan will be for your care and delivery is not healthy. 

Ask for your provider’s help in coming up with a plan for your care, especially if it isn’t safe for you to return home to New Orleans yet. While there will probably still be many questions, having an understanding and a tentative plan for where to receive care for you and your baby may begin to ease the anxious thoughts and worries. 

Reach Out for Emotional Support

If you are feeling like you need emotional support beyond your own family and friends, Postpartum Support International has weekly online support groups for expectant and new moms. These groups allow you to join together and process your own thoughts and emotions with other women who are experiencing the same worries, stresses, and anxieties. Postpartum Support International also has a wonderful directory with a list of therapists and counselors who specialize in working with women who are pregnant or in the postpartum period.

You can search for an online therapist located in Louisiana so you don’t have to worry if you aren’t able to return back to the Greater New Orleans community yet. You can get the emotional and mental health support you need no matter if you are still in New Orleans or evacuated to Baton Rouge. Working through the feelings of grief and anxiety that you’re feeling as a result of Hurricane Ida may help you feel more emotionally prepared for the birth and may lower your risk of postpartum anxiety or depression following delivery. 

Receive Online Postpartum Support in Louisiana

I would be honored to provide support for mothers in need of an understanding therapist. Together, we can practice these coping techniques and others during therapy for moms in Louisiana. I also support the residents of Colorado and Hawaii. To start your therapy journey, please follow these simple steps:

1. Schedule a free 15-minute consultation by phone or video

2. Learn more about me

3. Start coping with your anxiety in a healthy way!

Other Services Offered By Ashley Comegys, LCSW

Online postpartum support isn’t the only service I offer to

As a therapist, I seek to support women living in Louisiana, Colorado, or Hawaii. As I specialize in helping women, postpartum support is a big part of my practice. Because my counseling practice is completely online, new moms often find this a very easy way to meet. However, I do offer counseling for concerns other than postpartum support. For example, I offer online depression treatment, online grief counseling for women, and online trauma treatment for women. I also offer online therapy for military spouses & online individual counseling for women. For more helpful information, please learn more about me or read other posts on my blog!