I have been a member here for many years, but seldom comment. Your post really hit home for me. I have been where you are right now (twice) with my therapist. Her first pregnancy was rough for me, really rough. I felt abandoned and so heartbroken and so alone when she was on her leave. The first pregnancy we were smack in the middle of some trauma processing and I felt as if I had been left hanging with a raw open wound. We did not have time to close things up before she had to start her leave and had no arrangements to see anyone else during her absence. I won’t lie it was brutal and many many days I wondered how I was going to get through it. I entertained the idea of finding a different therapist completely. The reality for me was I felt angry, scared, betrayed and hurt. And part of me was silently hoping I’d hurt her by finding someone else. Sort of one of those “I’ll show you!” type of things. . I felt like I would lose what I had with her when she did come back. I spent days wallowing in the sadness that our therapy would change and so would she. I was back and forth (internally) telling myself nobody could help me like she has vs she sucks and “look at how she wronged me in all these other ways” I definitely need a new permanent therapist, preferably a nun 😏. My hurt feelings didn’t/don’t mean I wasn’t happy for her. I am happy she has a family and I respect her right as a person to live life outside of her role as a therapist. The two ranges of thought/feelings can exit together and not be black and white. I stuck the leaves out… miserably. And I won’t lie therapy changed. There were times once she came back appointments got canceled last minute due to sick baby, not enough sleep, etc. Eventually, we found our rhythm again and while different it is also more meaningful than it was prior to her becoming a mom.

Then tada she was pregnant again and I was yet again devastated in a totally different way. I had many of the same feelings as I did with her first pregnancy and my fears about her reliability were heightened. The second leave was better. I took my prior experience and together her and I developed a plan based on what I needed in her absence and what she could reasonably give me during her time off. When she was about 6 months pregnant I went and met two therapist who had agreed to cover her cases while she was on leave. I picked the lesser of two evils and about a month before she went out I did 2 joint and 2 individual sessions with the fill-in. I determined for myself what I wanted therapy with that therapist to look like and worked from there. I was fairly adamant with myself I was not going to talk trauma and would work on refining my coping skills and adding different things to my tool kit. For me, thinking like that helped and to my surprise towards the end of the leave I could tolerate him more and I did some really solid trauma work with him.

My therapist is back now and a mom of 2. She is older and considered high risk so I secretly keep my fingers crossed she is done having babies. Therapy is not like it was prior to her becoming a mom. She is not able to be as consistent as she was in the past and for a while that hurt and I felt rejected. I spent some time weighing my needs in therapy/from a therapist and what she could reasonably provide me. For example, I need consistency and unfortunately with two littles she cannot always give me that. I had a time when I was angry and felt insignificant when she would work her day job then tell me we could not meet later in the afternoon because x baby was sick, had a bad day, no sitter for the late afternoon. I made a choice to stick with her despite her being human and putting her family before me (half joking). I made my decision because at the end of the day therapy with someone with her skill set, someone I have a strong relationship with is worth it for me. I still get annoyed and pissy. It helps me to take my feelings out of it and look at it logically . It’s been a learning process for sure. I now know and believe it isn’t about me when she cancels. It isn’t about her being incapable. It’s life, her life and I can choose to keep doing the work with her or find someone else. For me the benefits of therapy with her outweigh the cancellations, the reminders I’m not as important to her as her family is etc.

I am sorry you’re going through this. I can understand where you are coming from and it 100% SUCKS. I get it and how your feeling makes perfect sense to me.