Why This Matters – a Note From Monica

This work is deeply personal. After experiencing my own perinatal loss, I learned how fragile these moments are, and how meaningful it can be to have them gently witnessed. My loss led me to volunteer with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and Capturing Hopes Photography, supporting families in the NICU and those grieving stillbirth through compassionate, respectful photography services. Being invited into those spaces, to bear witness to love in its most vulnerable moments, changed the course of my life.

Those experiences propelled me into social work and toward earning my Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on children, families, and pediatric palliative care. I later worked as a clinical social worker in the neuro-oncology program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, walking alongside families through diagnosis, grief, and profound uncertainty while offering emotional support, crisis care, and connection to resources during times of intense medical and emotional stress.

I bring all of this into each session: lived experience, clinical training, and a deep respect for how grief lives in the body and the space around us.