Hi! I’m Kathleen
I’m the person behind Wild Garden—and I’m really glad you found your way here.
I created this space because becoming a parent taught me something I thought I already understood as a therapist: preparing for a baby and preparing to become a parent are two very different things.
What started as a deeply personal realization eventually became the idea behind Wild Garden: a place for honest, evidence-based support through pregnancy, postpartum, and parenthood.
I’m so glad you’re here.
When professional knowledge became personal.
Long before I became a mother, I had spent years sitting alongside people during some of the most vulnerable seasons of their lives. I knew the language of mental health. I knew the coping skills. I knew the importance of asking for support.
And then I became a mom.
My own path to parenthood included pregnancy loss, a twin pregnancy, postpartum depression, another pregnancy sooner than I expected, and postpartum anxiety. Suddenly, so much of what I understood professionally became deeply personal.
I learned that knowing the clinical definition of anxiety doesn't necessarily prepare you for what it feels like when you're awake in the middle of the night wondering whether your baby is breathing. Knowing the signs of postpartum depression doesn't make it easy to recognize them in yourself. And loving your children more than you ever imagined doesn't mean that becoming their mother isn't incredibly hard sometimes.
That experience changed the way I think about supporting parents—and eventually became part of the reason I created Wild Garden.
I kept coming back to one thought…
We spend so much time preparing for the baby.
We research car seats. Build registries. Take birth classes. Read about feeding and sleep. Pack hospital bags.
But there is so much less conversation about how we might change.
What happens to our identities? Our relationships? Our anxiety? Our expectations? What happens when parenthood doesn't feel the way we thought it would?
Wild Garden exists to make more room for those conversations.
A little about my professional side
I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than a 15y years of experience in the mental health field. I currently practice as an outpatient therapist and have spent my career supporting children, adolescents, adults, and families through mental health challenges and major life transitions.
My clinical background shapes everything I create here. I believe mental health information should be evidence-based and responsible—but it should also be understandable, practical, and human.
You shouldn't need a clinical degree to understand what's happening inside your own mind.
Outside of all of this…
I'm a wife and mom of three, an enthusiastic collector of houseplants, and someone who will always make time for a true crime podcast or a quick jam session to '90s grunge or 2000s emo-rock while pretending I have the vocal range of Amy Lee or Hayley Williams. I love cooking when three tiny people aren't simultaneously needing something from me, reading a good book, watching women's soccer, and unwinding with a little HGTV or a rerun of Friends.
These days, most of those things happen in whatever little pockets of time I can find. I'm still figuring out how to make room for the things that make me feel like me while raising three little humans—and I have a feeling I'm not the only one.
I'm a work in progress, too—and I think that's part of what makes this space what it is.
I'm so glad you're here.
Whether you're preparing for your first baby, trying to find yourself somewhere in the fog of postpartum, or years into parenthood and realizing you could use some support too—I hope you find something here that makes you feel a little more informed, a little more understood, and a little less alone.
With gratitude,
Kathleen