Welcome! I’m Dr. Jackie Joy

I am a fertility coach and New Orleans-based pelvic floor physical therapist

changing the game for your motherhood journey from preconception all the way to postpartum.

My passion is helping women in their twenties and thirties who are feeling disillusioned and detached as they navigate fertility struggles and new motherhood to embrace intuition and joy as they unlock their feminine power to conceive, grow, birth, and nurture a baby while honoring and nurturing themselves in the process.

Through my own journey I have learned that

everything you need to embody your purpose for motherhood is already within you.

Keep reading for my fertility story!

Work with me!

click here to read my postpartum story instead

To unlock it, you need support.

Here’s How I can Help!

Fertility, Hormone & Pre-Conception

For the wannabe mamas, the ladies who are feeling cursed by their periods and for those who want to optimize their health as they prepare to start a family.

Learn more

Empowered Pregnancy & Birth Prep

For the soon-to-be mamas who want to go into their birth feeling completely empowered in their body as they bring their new babe earthside.

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Embodied Postpartum Care

For any mama who is feeling the aftereffects of birthing their babe and wants to get back to feeling at home in their body.

Learn more

Here’s My Story

Starting a Family

07

Chapter 1: Starting a Family

When my husband and I decided to start a family, I was hesitant.

I had always wanted to be a mom.

But after years of waiting for the “right” time, I was surprised by how much trepidation I felt when my husband (who will furthermore be referred to as Matt) and I decided to start a family. A lot had happened in the last 3 years leading up to making that decision:

I’d recently lost my grandmother - my namesake - due to COVID.

I was still healing from that, in addition to all the collective stress, disappointment, disruptions, and big-and-little-T traumas we all experienced going through the pandemic.
I’d had 3 years of debilitating back and pelvic pain that left me barely able to walk
I had tried to regulate my hormones with birth control - which did NOT work - and it turns out I had a systemic inflammatory condition called endometriosis after being told my symptoms were “normal” by all my doctors.
I had tried to regulate my hormones with birth control - which did NOT work - and it turns out I had a systemic inflammatory condition called endometriosis after being told my symptoms were “normal” by all my doctors.
I had spent an entire year healing after having excision surgery for my endo, seeing all kinds of specialty providers, spending a lot of time researching, and draining all of my energy to have my best shot at getting better.

So it’s no surprise that I was nervous about this major physical and emotional undertaking after all I’d been through.

Maybe that’s happened to you too.

And maybe if you’re like me, an honor-roll girl who doesn’t let ANYTHING slip through the cracks, you basically have a magna cum laude PhD in your body’s physiology

And even if you don’t know that much about your body yet, you’ve pledged allegiance to figuring out EVERYTHING you need to know and do to get pregnant on your first try.

Or at least your second or third.

For me this looked like:

3 years of religiously tracking my cycles and every related symptom to put together the puzzle of my pain, my fertility, and my overall health.

Learning EVERYTHING there was to know about preparing my body physically, including all the right nutrients to optimize my fertility
Listening to ALL the podcasts, reading ALL the books, and teaching myself what my doctors didn’t (I had basically been told 3 years before that I had PCOS and I should just get on medication when i was ready to conceive - I REFUSED to settle for that)
Avoiding gluten, dairy, sugar, alcohol, processed foods, ice cream, pizza, beer, wine, and all the other good things in life
Clearing my home of chemical-based cleaning products in favor of more natural ones.

Sound a little like insanity?

Maybe you’ve done many similar things.

The truth is, it did feel a bit insane. But I did see some of the results.

My cycles had gone from being anywhere from 54 to 86 to 45 days, to a relatively predictable 31-39 days (pretty good, huh?).
My periods didn’t hurt anymore (no small feat for someone with endometriosis).
I knew exactly when I was ovulating despite still having a good bit of irregularity in my cycles.

While I wasn’t naive to the potential for trouble and heartache, I went into trying to conceive with total confidence that I’d done everything I possibly could to be “successful.”

The best result?

Chapter 2: Pregnancy

We actually got pregnant on our first REAL try -even though I’d had a super wonky 59 day cycle (in the middle of 2021 after all we’d been through, who DIDN’T have some weird cycles?)...

Even though I’d learned how to identify my fertile window and done allll this prep work, I surprised myself at just how - well, SURPRISED - I was to see that positive pregnancy test.

Because even though I had 90% confidence in my body at this point, there was still a part of me that believed the OBGYN who had told me that I shouldn’t even try to get pregnant without medical assistance (whom I fired, by the way).

Not that getting medical assistance to conceive is bad or wrong (and it’s absolutely great we have that for people whose bodies just need an extra boost to get pregnant!) - but her words had stuck with me. Disempowered me. Made me believe that I was destined to have trouble, 3 years before I even had any DESIRE to try.

And based on my history - I DID come in with reasonable expectations for it to take a while to get pregnant.

But when it didn’t take “a while” I was surprised!

Chapter 3: My Worst Fear

What I really DIDN’T expect

Was the cramping that started.

And then the spotting.

That turned into heavy bleeding.

Despite my frantic googling looking for signs that this could be perfectly “normal,” I think I knew what was happening.

The thing I said I could NOT handle… not after losing my grandma. Not after losing my PT school graduation. Not after losing everything that we lost in the pandemic.

Miscarriage.

I had barely had time to adjust to the idea of being pregnant - of envisioning our future child, of sensing the wonder of this bundle of cells grow rapidly inside my body

And yet, the loss was completely heart-wrenching – even though I had known miscarriage could be a reality before we started trying.

My worst fear was coming to fruition.

I wondered, after all I’d been through the previous 3 years, if I was just asking for more grief by trying for a baby - my heart had broken, was there room for it to break even more?

Since I had been the straight-A PhD student of doing everything RIGHT to “achieve” pregnancy, I had to work hard to ignore that voice inside me that thought, “What could I have done differently?” [because the paradigm I lived in at that time was still very achievement and merit based - do all the right things, and get a certain desired result].

In spite of all of that, I knew that if I was going to recover and be ready to try again, I had to be gentle with myself.

Chapter 4: Doing All The Right Things

So I did ALL the right things {again, told you I’m good at this} so that I could move on and be ready to try again.

I gave myself time and space to grieve by clearing my schedule for the rest of the week. I let myself be sad.
I fought off the voices that said “that might have been your only chance” or “you shouldn’t have had those 2 glasses of wine on Friday night”
I binge-watched Friday Night Lights (nothing more comforting than Tami Taylor’s voice am I right?)

I laid in bed and bought myself new clothes online. (Retail therapy isn’t a reliable crutch but it sure has its place!)

I had my hormones checked at my functional medicine provider and developed an action plan complete with a couple of new supplements to optimize my chances of getting and staying pregnant.

And truly, I felt better after a couple of weeks.

I was still sad, but my energy returned. I was functioning and moving towards my baseline joyful self.

And I came back ready to try again as soon as possible.

WOW! I even did that whole grieving thing right! Damn, Jackie! You really are an honor-roll student at life.

I knew it might take time to get pregnant again, and I was ok with that. Especially because I was doing everything I could to make sure I was healthy and ready for the next one.

Because if you do EVERYTHING right - even grieving “correctly” - surely eventually you will get what you want…right?

And of course, I also doubled down on my efforts to control every aspect of my body.

Avoiding alcohol completely after ovulating, just in case

Limiting high intensity exercise because I was afraid it might have been causing my cycles to be prolonged
Being even more strict with my dietary measures
Spending a lot of money on extra supplements that seemed like “they might help” so why not?

When my therapist asked me a few months later, “how are you feeling about the miscarriage and trying to get pregnant?”

I responded - “Oh, I actually feel great. My hormones feel balanced, I’m ovulating, and I know the odds of “it” happening again are so slim… I feel really confident that If I get pregnant again we’ll get to meet our baby.”

And I did. I felt better than ever - which usually is a physical and physiological signal that the body is in balance and healthy, and therefore primed for healthy reproduction.

A couple weeks after that, I got that big fat positive again.

I was pregnant.

I waited for time to go by, counting down every single day past when we made it “last time.”

I called my parents as soon as I found out because last time, we didn’t make it long enough to tell them and that was something else I grieved - not getting to celebrate the pregnancy with our friends and family.

I was anxious but excited.

I looked up common early pregnancy symptoms any time I started freaking out.

I prayed and meditated and trusted that I could relax - what happened last time was NOT going to happen again.

We were going to meet this baby.

Chapter 5: Another Loss

I was in a session with one of my postpartum clients when it started.

I was listening to her talk about mom life, a spark of joy in my heart thinking that would be ME SO SOON.

My body felt weird and also electric. Early pregnancy symptoms, am I right? I felt tired and achy, but also excited about the new growth inside of me.

But as I tuned in to my body while talking to this client, I realized…

I felt a little crampy, and then more crampy.

Not able to look at my phone in the moment, I panic-googled inside my head, comforting myself with everything I’d read before bed the night before.

“This is normal Jackie. It’s normal to experience cramping in early pregnancy. Your uterus is a muscle. It is going to cramp when it’s trying to expand.”

I went to the bathroom.

Teeny tiny bit of spotting.

“Light pink spotting is normal in early pregnancy.” {webMD}

No freaking out here!

It was a gorgeous day in late January, so I walked home from work.

The cramping increased.

I got home. Opened my laptop to finish my client care notes in my bed. My phone open to 3 tabs I’d clicked on after googling “Is spotting during pregnancy normal?”

The sensation of more spotting and fluid increased.

I went to the bathroom.

Fuck.

The spotting was now more like bleeding.

Like when your period starts.

Fuck.

“FUCK.” I yelled.

I went and lay down in my bed.

My husband, in the living room, came into the bedroom and held me as I melted into a puddle.

“I lost it.”

The last time, I kept googling, I kept waiting. Maybe the bleeding would slow or stop.

Maybe this was normal?

Maybe it would all be fine.

But this felt way TOO similar to last time.

The exact same thing, the exact same way.

I couldn’t bear the pain of letting myself hope for longer.

So I called it.

No googling.

Because I knew the truth-

We were losing our baby.

Again.

A-fucking-gain.

Through the biggest ugly cry tears I wept “no, no, no, no, no” and “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” as my husband held his arms tightly around my crumpled body.

I wasn’t apologizing because I’d done anything wrong… It was like I was telling myself I’m sorry because I knew what I was experiencing was so hard, and so wrong. I was sorry I wouldn’t get to be a mom like I thought. I was sorry that my husband had to experience this loss with me.

And the worst part…. I had let myself be hopeful that this would never happen again.

Chapter 6: Becoming a Mama

Well that got dark and sad quickly. It was. It hurt. It hurt so badly.

But I want to tell you that- spoiler - I did get pregnant again.

And this time, I stayed pregnant with a healthy baby boy. I had a healthy, empowered pregnancy, and honestly, I kind of loved it. (But the amnesia is so real).

There is a lot I could say about the complicated emotions of pregnancy after loss.

I could tell you that I did all the right things to make sure I didn’t lose the baby again.

I could tell you that, conversely, I threw out EVERYTHING I had been doing because it “obviously didn’t work.”

I could tell you that I was able to turn around my grief after watching Season 2 of Sweet Magnolias and just hold on to hope.

I could tell you that the anxiety lifts as soon as you’re out of the first trimester.

I could tell you that the pregnancy was super easy and I just loved it. (It was not, it was still SO hard, physically and emotionally)

Those would be half-truths at best.

I was jaded. I wanted to stop trying. I wanted to stop tracking my stupid cycles I’d been monitoring like a secret service officer.

I didn’t throw out everything I’d been doing. But I did allow myself to do things differently this time.

What did I do?

I leaned into fun, rest, support, connection, and the things that brought me joy.
My husband and I went on a trip to Miami to be warm, lay by a pool eating snacks, and connect with each other.
I allowed my support system to care for me and send me a few meals.
I got medical support from a team I trusted and found a new OBGYN
I went to a friend’s Met Gala Alter-Ego themed 30th Birthday party and dressed up in a silly costume and danced and drank a moderate amount and made new friends.
I got my septum pierced.
I let myself not track my cycles religiously and just paid attention to my body. I wasn’t really sure when the right time to try again would be.

And guess what?

I got pregnant. I stayed pregnant. I now have a gorgeous baby boy who brings me so much delight.

Chapter 7: Lessons in Nurturing

Maybe you can relate to all or parts of my story.

And maybe if you’re like me, an honor-roll girl who doesn’t let ANYTHING slip through the cracks, you basically have a magna cum laude PhD in your body’s physiology

And even if you haven’t, you’ve pledged allegiance to figuring out EVERYTHING you need to know and do to get pregnant on your first try.

Or at least your second or third.

But what you ACTUALLY need to embody your feminine power to conceive and carry a pregnancy

Is A gentle approach that nurtures your body AND the juicy, fierce mama spirit within you

So that you can be fully ready to nourish and nurture that baby when you finally have her in your arms.

Here is what I learned through my journey:

Holding on to hope, especially after immense grief, is extremely vulnerable.

There absolutely were helpful things I utilized to support my body prior to and during pregnancy to make my body hospitable for conceiving and carrying a baby (and these things are not taught in your doctor’s office)

BUT - thinking that I could control the outcome by performing my very best, having perfect labs, eating the perfect diet, and calculating nearly every action in my life in hopes of conceiving was extremely misguided

It turns out, the missing piece for me was leaning into joy and learning how to let go - these are the feminine paradigms of fertility that are not explained by lab tests.

And yet, learning to embrace a life of joy and freedom regardless of the outcome and timing of my family, was the special sauce to my conception “strategy” that was missing

And most importantly, leaning into the RIGHT support

Truth be told, it was YEARS of figuring out how to befriend and honor my body while trying to understand how to “fix” my physiology

Everything you need to embody your purpose for motherhood is already within you - but to unlock it, you need support, mama.

That’s why I help women in their twenties and thirties who are feeling disillusioned and detached as they navigate fertility struggles and new motherhood to embrace intuition and joy as they unlock their feminine power to conceive, grow, birth, and nurture a baby while honoring and nurturing themselves in the process.

To unlock it, you need support.