BASED IN CLIFTON, NJ AND SERVING ALL OF NJ, NY, PA, FL, & TX

Sex Therapy for Reproductive Loss, Including Abortion, Miscarriage, Infertility & IVF

Sometimes the grief begins long before anyone else knows there was something to lose.

You stand in the bathroom staring at another negative pregnancy test. Or waiting for the phone to ring with embryo results. Or refreshing the patient portal, hoping the numbers have doubled. Or sitting in a fertility clinic surrounded by people who seem to understand exactly why no one is speaking.

Maybe you've memorized hormone schedules, medication dosages, and cycle days. Your body no longer feels like your own—it feels like a project, a laboratory, a source of data. Every month becomes another clinical beginning, another silent ending.

Maybe you carried a pregnancy that ended before you ever got to tell anyone. Maybe you had to make the decision to end a pregnancy, knowing there wasn't a single choice that didn't carry grief. Maybe your body miscarried while the rest of the world kept moving. Maybe you're watching friends announce pregnancies while quietly calculating how many retrievals, transfers, surgeries, or losses you've survived. Maybe you've stopped answering the question, "When are you having kids?" because every single answer hurts.

Or perhaps you've begun realizing that parenthood may never happen in the way you imagined—and you're grieving not only a pregnancy, but an entire future you spent years believing would be yours.

The Invisibility of Reproductive Loss

For many people, reproductive loss is completely invisible. There is often no funeral. No bereavement leave. No casserole on the doorstep. There is no language that fully captures what has happened. Instead, life expects you to return to work, smile through baby showers, answer casual questions about your plans, continue treatments, try again, and move on.

But your body remembers. Your relationships change, your identity shifts in ways you never anticipated, and your sexuality changes completely. Sometimes, intimacy begins to feel entirely associated with disappointment, pressure, medical appointments, injections, or grief, instead of connection and pleasure.

At The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy, we work with individuals and couples navigating infertility, IVF, recurrent pregnancy loss, miscarriage, abortion, reproductive trauma, and the profound identity changes that often accompany these experiences.

This is specialized therapy for people grieving not only what actually happened—but also what was hoped for.

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It’s ok to not be ok.

For many people, reproductive loss is grief compounded.

You were likely sold the message that getting pregnant is a magical, guaranteed milestone. But the losses keep adding up:

  • The initial, baseline shattering: Navigating the physical, immediate reality of a pregnancy that has come to an end.

  • Grieving a phantom future: Mourning the entire timeline, milestones, and life chapters you had already begun imagining and building your world around.

  • The ultimate bodily betrayal: Reaching a point where you feel a profound, exhausting loss of trust in your own skin and physical systems.

  • Living without a map: Carrying a constant internal friction because the certainty that your life would unfold the way you expected has vanished.

  • Intimacy reduced to logistics: Facing the quiet loss of spontaneity in sex as your bedroom shifts from a space of pleasure into an administrative cycle of calendars, medications, clinical procedures, and waiting.

  • The fishbowl effect: Managing a grueling loss of personal privacy as your body becomes public domain—openly analyzed and discussed in sterile exam rooms, laboratories, and invasive family conversations.

  • The slow erosion of hope: Experiencing a profound loss of innocence each time an grueling cycle ends, another transfer fails, another pregnancy is lost, or an agonizingly difficult choice has to be made alone.

It is grief that often arrives without rituals, without recognition, and without language.

You may grieve:

  • The child you never met.

  • The embryos that never became pregnancies.

  • The pregnancy you chose to end.

  • The family you imagined.

  • The version of yourself who believed this would happen differently.

For many people, the grief extends beyond reproduction itself. It becomes grief for the person you were before hope became something you measured month by month.

Reproductive loss rarely stays contained to one chapter of your life.

You may find yourself questioning:

  • Whether your body can be trusted anymore

  • If sex will ever feel spontaneous instead of scheduled, medicalized, or emotionally loaded

  • Whether you and your partner are grieving in the same way—or drifting apart while trying to survive

  • If becoming a parent has quietly become part of how you measure your worth

  • Whether you want to keep trying, or whether you're afraid to stop

  • How to respond to pregnancy announcements, baby showers, or well-meaning questions that now feel impossible to answer

  • What it means to build a meaningful life if the future you've imagined begins to change

In these moments, reproductive loss often becomes something larger than the event itself. It becomes grief for a body that no longer feels familiar:

  • Grief for a relationship that has changed under the weight of uncertainty.

  • Grief for a future that once felt certain.

  • Grief for an identity that may no longer fit in the way it once did.

Sometimes people begin blaming themselves:

  • "Maybe my body failed."

  • “Maybe I deserve this.”

  • "Maybe I waited too long."

  • "Maybe if I'd done something differently..."

  • "Maybe everyone else is coping better than I am."

These experiences are not signs of failure or weakness.

They are signs that something deeply meaningful has been altered.

Therapy offers space to hold that grief without rushing it, fixing it, or asking you to move on before you're ready.

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Reproductive loss is rarely about reproduction alone.

Whether the loss comes through infertility, miscarriage, abortion, failed IVF cycles, stillbirth, recurrent pregnancy loss, or the realization that parenthood may not happen, these experiences often reach far beyond the medical event itself.

You may be navigating:

  • Infertility and fertility treatments (including IVF, IUI, egg retrievals, donor conception, or surrogacy)

  • Miscarriage, recurrent pregnancy loss, or stillbirth

  • Abortion and the complex emotions that may accompany it

  • Pregnancy termination due to fetal anomalies or maternal health concerns

  • Secondary infertility

  • Choosing to stop fertility treatment

  • Grieving a future that may no longer feel possible

  • Changes in sexual desire or intimacy during fertility treatment

  • Relationship strain during reproductive decision-making

  • The emotional impact of reproductive endocrine disorders such as PMOS, endometriosis, fibroids, diminished ovarian reserve, or premature ovarian insufficiency

These experiences often carry multiple losses at once:

  • The loss of certainty.

  • The loss of control.

  • The loss of trust in your body.

  • The loss of imagined timelines.

  • The loss of a future you had quietly begun building in your mind.

Many people begin wondering:

  • "Did I wait too long?"

  • "Did my body fail me?"

  • "Will sex ever feel like sex again instead of another medical procedure?"

  • "Why does everyone else seem to move on while I'm still here?"

But reproductive grief is not a sign that you're broken. It is often the understandable response to loving something deeply that has been altered, delayed, or lost.

  • Specialized, affirming support to help you reclaim your sexual side. Whether you are navigating sexual dysfunction, low desire, or pain during sex, therapy offers a safe space to rebuild connection, confidence, and pleasure. We provide expert, identity-informed care to help you move past sexual shame, address intimacy concerns, navigate LGBTQIA+ stress, or safely explore your sexual identity.

    Bespoke, expert-level care for the sexual complexities, disorders, dynamics, and desires we rarely name:

    • Sexual Desire & Functioning: Working through low desire, arousal or orgasm challenges, and pain during sex.

    • Hormonal & Reproductive Health: Navigating chronic illness, cancer, perimenopause, menopause, and complex reproductive conditions like PCOS, PMDD, endometriosis, and fibroids.

    • Medical & Diagnostic Anxiety: Support through difficult test results, health screenings, medical trauma, and reclaiming sexual health after surgery or major illness.

    • Compulsive Behaviors & Trauma: Specialized care for compulsive sexual behaviors, problematic pornography use, deep-seated shame, and healing from religious or spiritual sexual trauma.

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  • Reclaiming Confidence, Pleasure, and Personal Authenticity

    Major life, health, or cultural changes—like becoming a parent, menopause, chronic illness, surgery, coming out, divorce, or empty nesting—can shift your sense of self and how you connect with others. We support clients in navigating these complex transitions to reclaim confidence, pleasure, and personal authenticity.

    Rather than viewing these changes as isolated physical symptoms, our practice addresses how medical shifts, hormonal evolutions, and lifestyle milestones transform your internal identity and your intimate relationships.

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  • Reclaiming comfort, confidence, and connection when your relationship with yourself or your identity shifts. Body changes, self-consciousness, or shame can quietly undermine sexual confidence, desire, and enjoyment—profoundly affecting intimacy and overall satisfaction.

    Up to 95% of LGBTQ individuals, 90% of women, and 40% of men report body dissatisfaction, which can lead to “spectatoring” during sex, lowering desire and making arousal or orgasm harder. We help you feel at home in your body, restore intimate connection, and cultivate confidence in your sexuality and identity on your own terms.

    Bespoke, expert-level care for the identity shifts, relational dynamics, and somatic challenges we rarely name:

    • Somatic Health & Body Sovereignty: Specialized care for body image, disordered eating, trauma, identity-based harm, and healing from profound experiences of erasure.

    • Neurodivergence & Gender Expansion: Affirming, expert-level support for neurodivergence and sexuality (ADHD, AuDHD, ASD), alongside gender-affirming care for LGBTQ+ identity and coming out.

    • Relational Dynamics & Modern Intimacy: Navigating caregiver stress, burnout, dating, modern relationships, sex work, and queer-spectrum sports psychology.

    • Culture, Identity, & Family Evolution: Thoughtful support for expat, immigrant, and multicultural identities, as well as parenthood decisions, child-free living, and complex family planning.

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  • Holding space for the silent, complicated, and invisible heartbreaks traditional talk therapy overlooks. When grief intersects with reproductive choices, body changes, or identity shifts, the pain can feel deeply isolating. We provide an advanced, gentle clinical environment to help you process profound life losses, honor your unique timeline, and safely carry your grief without being forced to rush through it.

    Bespoke, expert-level care for the reproductive losses, life transitions, and hidden grief we rarely name:

    • Reproductive Loss & Processing: Specialized support navigating the unique emotional weight of abortion, miscarriage, infertility, and the complex medical cycles of IVF.

    • Birthing Trauma & Postpartum Healing: Compassionate care for pregnancy complications, birth trauma, maternal mental health, matrescence, parenthood, and navigating sex after birth.

    • Grief, Loss, & Bereavement: Dedicated space to process the death of a loved one, secondary losses, and navigating life after major relational or family changes.

    • Aging & Maturation Identity Shifts: Honoring the complex grief tied to the passage of time, bodily changes, perimenopause/menopause, or outgrowing a version of yourself that once felt familiar.

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Here’s how we can help:

Hello,

You can find your way back yourself, even after everything changes. You are not broken. You are becoming. Every part of you is welcome here.

I founded this practice to walk with people through the "in-between"—those profound moments when a shift in your identity, sexuality, body, or relationships means you cannot go back to how things used to feel. We specialize in that exact space where your language hasn't yet caught up to your experience, but you know you have fundamentally changed.

As a feminist healthcare provider, I believe your sexuality is entirely inseparable from your identity. Our mission is to help you reclaim the parts of yourself that have been silenced, shamed, or left behind by life transitions, illness, trauma, and cultural expectations.

I built this practice to offer rare, expert-level care rooted in the exact AASECT-certified sex therapy standards and clinical social work principles I have practiced throughout my career. Using my signature ALIGN Framework and my EMPOWER Your Sexual Health® curriculum, the practice combines evidence-based sex therapy with somatic, humanistic, and meaning-centered approaches to reconnect you with your desire, identity, and sense of self.

The practice’s style is warm, collaborative, and thoughtfully direct. Let’s make space for the complexity of your experience and build a life that feels aligned, embodied, and authentically your own.

Warmly,

Genevieve Marie Gellert, MSW, LCSW, CST (she/her)
Founder, The Center for Identity and Sex Therapy

Learn more about the practice

How identity & sex therapy can help you…

Therapy offers space to slow down and understand how reproductive loss has shaped not only your emotions—but also your identity, relationships, body, and sexuality.

Rebuilding trust in your body after infertility, miscarriage, abortion, medical procedures, or reproductive trauma.

✓

Reconnecting with intimacy and sexuality when sex has become associated with pressure, grief, medical treatment, or loss.

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Processing complicated emotions including grief, guilt, shame, anger, relief, resentment, hope, or uncertainty without judgment.

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Navigating changing identities and relationships as partners, individuals, and families while making decisions about treatment, parenthood, or life after reproductive loss.

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At The Center for Identity and Sex Therapy, we approach grief through a relational, identity-informed lens that recognizes how loss can affect far more than emotions alone.

Grief can reshape your sense of self.

This is not therapy focused on "moving on," finding silver linings, or forcing closure.

It's about creating space to honor what has been lost while helping you build a meaningful relationship with the life that continues unfolding in front of you.

Because healing does not mean forgetting.

It means finding a way to stay connected to yourself, your relationships, your body, and your future while carrying the reality of what has changed. Our work is not about telling you how you should feel. It is about making space for the full complexity of what this experience has meant.

Virtual therapy that moves with you.

The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy is based in Clifton, NJ and provides secure online therapy for adults throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida. The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy offers secure online sessions across multiple states, expanding access to care without the barriers of commutes, waiting rooms, or rigid schedules. Virtual therapy ensures more equitable access — especially for clients who are immunocompromised, managing chronic illness or disability, balancing caregiving, relocating for work, or living between homes.

Meet from wherever feels safest and most supportive — at home, in a private office, or even outdoors on a walk if movement helps regulate overwhelm. The work meets you where you are — literally.

guiding principles

INTEGRITY

The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy is guided by ethical, evidence-based care and a commitment to honesty, accountability, and the well-being of every client.

COMPASSION

Healing begins where shame and judgment end; this work is grounded in empathy, dignity, and deep respect for your lived experience.

AUTONOMY

Your body, identity, and relationships belong to you, and therapy is a space to explore what feels most authentic — free from pressure or expectation.

INCLUSIVITY

Every identity, body, orientation, and relationship structure is welcome here, and your experience will be met with respect, curiosity, and care.

The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy provides inclusive, queer-affirming sex therapy and identity-focused counseling for adults. Our work is grounded in diversity, pride, and social justice, creating a safe, affirming space for clients across sexual orientations, gender identities, and cultural backgrounds.

Grounded in purpose and guided by curiosity, this work is shaped by a deep respect for history, a commitment to social justice, and thoughtful care for complex human experiences.

Curious about our logo or the history of the Pride Flag? Learn more about the values that guide our LGBTQ-affirming therapy practice. Read more.

Did you know?

Reproductive loss is far more common than many people realize, yet it often remains one of the least openly discussed forms of grief.

Research estimates that:

  • Approximately 1 in 4 recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage, with many losses occurring before a person ever shares news of the pregnancy.

  • Infertility affects approximately 1 in 6 adults globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

  • IVF and fertility treatment are associated with significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, relationship stress, and emotional exhaustion compared to the general population.

  • Pregnancy termination is a common reproductive experience. Research consistently finds that the overwhelming majority of people who obtain abortions do not experience long-term psychological harm from the abortion itself; instead, outcomes are strongly influenced by stigma, social support, prior mental health, and life circumstances.

  • Reproductive grief often includes ambiguous loss—grieving someone, something, or a future that existed psychologically even if others cannot see or recognize that loss.

Identity-informed sex therapy recognizes that reproductive experiences influence far more than fertility alone. They shape embodiment, sexuality, attachment, partnership, identity, and the ways people imagine their future.

Infertility and reproductive health challenges — including difficulty conceiving, IVF and assisted reproductive treatment, miscarriage, recurrent pregnancy loss, stillbirth, and abortion — are often deeply emotional, physical, and identity-shaping experiences. These events can affect mental health, sexuality, relationships, body image, and how individuals experience their future, their bodies, and their sense of control.

Research shows infertility affects approximately 1 in 5 married women in the United States, according to the (https://www.cdc.gov). However, reproductive loss and pregnancy-related grief are also widespread and often under-discussed. The (https://www.acog.org) recognizes miscarriage as a common pregnancy outcome, occurring in up to 10–20% of known pregnancies, with early pregnancy loss often underestimated due to underreporting.

Pregnancy loss — including miscarriage, stillbirth, and abortion — can bring profound grief, trauma responses, anxiety, depression, guilt, numbness, or emotional disconnection. While experiences vary widely, many individuals report a sense of invisible loss, particularly when cultural, relational, or medical environments minimize or silence their grief. The (https://www.who.int) recognizes reproductive health-related distress, including pregnancy loss and infertility, as significant contributors to mental health burden globally.

IVF and assisted reproductive treatments can also intensify emotional strain due to hormonal changes, financial pressure, physical demands, and repeated cycles of hope, uncertainty, and loss. Across all reproductive experiences — including infertility, miscarriage, abortion, and fertility treatment — individuals may experience grief that is both embodied and relational, affecting intimacy, sexuality, identity, and emotional wellbeing.

For many people — including cisgender women, men, and LGBTQ+ individuals building families — reproductive health is not only medical, but deeply psychological and relational. It often intersects with identity, embodiment, cultural expectations, and meaning-making around family and future.

  • Infertility affects approximately 1 in 5 married women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  • Yes. Research from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes infertility as a condition that can cause significant emotional distress, including grief, anxiety, depression, and identity-related stress.

  • Infertility and reproductive loss are associated with increased rates of anxiety, depression, grief, stress, and relationship strain. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes infertility and reproductive health challenges as significant contributors to psychological distress globally.

  • Infertility often impacts more than the body — it can affect identity, future planning, relationships, sexuality, and cultural or family expectations around reproduction. Many people experience grief, shame, anger, or a sense of loss of control.

  • Yes. Infertility can affect communication, sexual intimacy, emotional closeness, and shared decision-making. Partners may cope differently, which can sometimes lead to misunderstanding or emotional distance.

  • Yes. Infertility affects people of all genders and relationship structures. Men may experience grief, shame, or identity distress related to sperm health or fertility testing. LGBTQ+ individuals may face additional layers of medical navigation, access barriers, and emotional complexity in family-building pathways such as IVF, donor conception, or surrogacy.

  • Yes. Trauma-informed and relational therapy can support individuals and couples in processing grief, managing treatment stress, navigating relationship dynamics, and maintaining emotional wellbeing throughout fertility journeys.

  • Miscarriage occurs in approximately 10–20% of known pregnancies, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), though the actual rate may be higher due to early losses that occur before pregnancy is recognized.

  • Yes. Pregnancy loss — including miscarriage, stillbirth, and abortion — can result in grief, anxiety, depression, trauma responses, guilt, numbness, or emotional disconnection. Emotional responses vary widely and are influenced by personal history, cultural context, support systems, and the meaning of the pregnancy for the individual.

  • Yes. Grief after pregnancy loss is a common and valid emotional response. Many people experience both emotional and physical grief, which may come in waves and may not follow a predictable timeline.

  • Yes. Infertility, IVF, and pregnancy loss can affect communication, sexual intimacy, emotional closeness, and shared decision-making. Partners may grieve differently, which can sometimes create emotional distance or misunderstanding.

  • LGBTQ+ individuals may experience additional layers of complexity, including medical system navigation, access barriers, donor conception or surrogacy processes, and identity-related grief or affirmation experiences. These factors can shape how reproductive journeys are experienced emotionally and relationally.

  • Yes. Trauma-informed and relational therapy can support individuals and couples in processing grief, navigating uncertainty, addressing trauma responses, and rebuilding emotional and relational stability through reproductive experiences.

  • Yes. Fertility treatment often changes communication, intimacy, finances, routines, and the emotional landscape of a relationship. Many couples describe feeling more like teammates managing a medical process than romantic partners. Therapy can help restore connection while navigating treatment or life beyond it.

  • Yes. Pregnancy loss often changes how people experience their bodies, intimacy, desire, and safety. Therapy helps create space for grief while gently rebuilding trust in yourself, your body, and your relationships.

  • Absolutely. Relief and grief are not opposites. Many people experience multiple emotions simultaneously after an abortion. Therapy offers space for the complexity of your experience without assuming what you should feel.

  • Yes. Fertility treatment often raises difficult questions about finances, emotional capacity, medical interventions, and family planning. Therapy can support couples in navigating these conversations with greater clarity, compassion, and mutual understanding.

  • Absolutely. Choosing to end fertility treatment or accept a child-free future can involve profound grief, identity shifts, and questions about meaning and purpose. Therapy can help you mourn the future you imagined while making space for a different one.

  • Often, yes. Desire, arousal, pleasure, body image, and intimacy frequently shift after infertility, miscarriage, abortion, IVF, or reproductive trauma. Sex therapy helps explore these changes without judgment and supports rebuilding intimacy in ways that feel authentic rather than pressured.

  • Yes. Some people come alone, while others attend with a partner. Therapy can support individuals, couples, and people navigating reproductive decisions across many different relationship structures and family configurations.

  • Whether you are mourning a pregnancy, navigating infertility, processing an abortion, making difficult decisions about IVF, or learning how to imagine a future that looks different than you expected, therapy can provide space to honor both what has been lost and what is still becoming.

FAQS for Grief & Loss Therapy

  • Yes. Many widowed individuals experience guilt, loyalty conflicts, fear, and uncertainty when considering intimacy or relationships after loss. Therapy can help you navigate these feelings while honoring both your grief and your desire for connection.

  • Ambiguous loss is grief related to something that has changed but is not entirely gone. Examples include changes in health, sexual functioning, fertility, identity, independence, or relationships. These losses are often invisible to others but deeply impactful emotionally.

  • Absolutely. Grief can impact desire, emotional connection, body image, comfort with touch, sexual identity, and relationship dynamics. Many people find themselves questioning aspects of intimacy they never struggled with before.

  • Yes. Many people experience profound grief after health changes, surgeries, disability, cancer treatment, chronic illness, or aging alter their relationship with their body. Therapy can help process these losses while rebuilding connection and self-compassion.

  • Grief does not follow a timeline. Therapy provides a space where your experience does not need to be justified, minimized, or rushed.

  • Yes. The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy is based in Clifton and offers secure online therapy for adults throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

    Virtual therapy allows clients to access specialized support from the comfort and privacy of their own space while maintaining consistency through busy schedules, transitions, caregiving responsibilities, or health concerns.

  • The first step is reaching out for a consultation.

    This gives you an opportunity to share what you’ve been experiencing, ask questions about the therapy process, and determine whether working together feels like the right fit.

  • At The Center for Identity and Sex Therapy, we recognize that grief often affects identity, sexuality, relationships, body image, and emotional wellbeing simultaneously. Our work focuses not only on coping with loss, but on helping you understand who you are becoming in its aftermath.

We want you to know:

Change is possible.

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Contact

When desire changes or identity shifts, intimacy can feel miles away. Stop navigating that untethered feeling alone.

Through online, AASECT-certified sex therapy, we provide a relational, specialized space for adults facing health, cross-cultural, or life transitions that disrupt sexuality and body image. Let's explore what’s evolving.

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