I live in Los Angeles with my husband, three kids, and two dogs. From the outside, my life might look ordinary. You’d never guess I’ve lost four pregnancies in the last four years.

Yes, it’s tragic—and tragically common. In the U.S. last year alone, families like mine lost more than one million pregnancies. Studies show 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, with some estimates even higher, not counting failed embryo transfers, medical interventions, or stillbirths. And yet, meaningful psychological support remains scarce.

After my first loss in 2021, I lay awake night after night searching online for answers: Why did this happen? What if it happens again? Have others gone through this? Will I ever feel better? What I found instead was vague information, unhelpful platitudes, and a shocking lack of real psychological expertise.

I realized women deserve something different. Not hard to navigate platforms with endless articles, generic advice, or chance matches with therapists online. But rather, evidence-based, easy to digest information; a safe and supportive community; and therapeutic experts who have walked this terrain and know how to offer both informed compassion and reproductive loss care.

That’s why I began assembling a team—researchers, clinicians, and women who’ve experienced pregnancy loss firsthand—to learn what actually helps. Again and again, the response was clear: women navigating reproductive loss weren’t just looking for any therapist to talk to. They needed the right therapist.

That’s why we’re building Lavela: a place where every therapist is hand-selected for their deep expertise in reproductive loss, and where women can finally find the kind of community, content, and especially care they didn’t know to ask for—but always deserved.