Grief and loss can often be a huge part of one’s journey to create family. The emotional and mental toll it takes on those impacted often goes unaddressed. Join us for our discussion with Erica Freeman, Founder of Sisters in Loss and Tamara Akua Hunter, Reproductive & Perinatal Psychotherapist and Founder of Womb Wisdom Wellness LLC, as we delve into the unique challenges Black individuals and couples face when dealing with (in)fertility, particularly focusing on the emotional and psychological impacts, and how we can navigate these challenges.
Erica M. Freeman
Erica M. Freeman, is an expert storyteller, award winning podcaster, and full spectrum doula at Sisters in Loss, a maternal child health education company that helps Black women replace silence with storytelling around pregnancy and infant loss and infertility. Sisters in Loss provides pregnancy, birth, postpartum, bereavement doula, and grief services to help women step beyond anxiety and fear and into trust and peace after loss. It's self-titled podcast spotlights resilient Black mothers who share intimate details of their journey to motherhood through painful, but inspirational loss and infertility stories. Sisters in Loss has been featured in Forbes, BBC News, Black Enterprise, Women's Health, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and The White House.
Tamara Hunter, LPC
Tamara Hunter is the Founder of Womb Wisdom Wellness LLC, located in Atlanta, Georgia. She is committed to helping women/birthing people prioritize their mental and emotional wellness. Tamara is a trained perinatal mental health provider. She specializes in infertility, perinatal loss, traumatic birth, and postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. Her personal experience with infertility, reproductive loss, postpartum anxiety & depression led Tamara to advocate, educate and support women/birthing people & couples. Tamara provides coaching, individual therapy, and support groups to women/birthing people and men, experiencing womb challenges, fertility issues, perinatal loss, and navigating the stages of motherhood, including postpartum depression and anxiety. She empowers women/birthing people by using a holistic person-centered approach to therapy.
In addition to supporting women, Tamara has presented on Infertility & Maternal Mental Health at the National Cross-Cultural Counseling & Education Conference for Research Action & Change, created & facilitated Making the Most out of Motherhood postpartum support group at Northside Hospital, & was featured in Huffington Post, Zeera Mental Health App and published in Fertility Out Loud magazine. Tamara was a guest panelist on WABE, The Georgia Reproductive and Maternal Justice Summit, & Postpartum Support International Black Maternal Mental Health Summit discussing Inequities in Black Women’s Reproductive and Maternal Health. Tamara is passionate about eradicating the stigma and silence of black maternal mental health. Tamara created the Womb Wisdom podcast on Soundcloud which features Black women’s reproductive health, mental health, & maternal mental health journeys. The podcast provides a healing platform for Black women to share their womb stories through the power of storytelling.