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 to learn more about my postpartum journey!

Read my fertility story instead

Work with me!

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.

Learn more

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 Postpartum Story

I was on my third or fourth meltdown in my two-weeks with my brand new baby.

My husband was gone on a work trip (lessons learned, don’t let your husband go on a work trip when you’re 2 weeks postpartum), so I’d already treaded through the dark nighttime hours alone with the baby.

We’d made through it to morning (something we learned to celebrate EVERY morning), but as my baby popped on and off my nipple, he got more and more frustrated by the difficulty he had latching on.

He started screaming, clawing at my chest, his flailing fingers raking on my hair. I was screaming in pain as he demolished my nipple and scratched my chest. I was losing it, sobbing, heaving.

My mom came to the rescue and took my baby as I hurled myself onto the floor and tried to calm my body down, barely able to breathe.

We’d recently had a tongue tie diagnosed, and had decided to work on a therapeutic latching technique to train him to latch more effectively before doing anything more invasive about it.

But my nipples were still raw.

I was still screaming in pain every time he latched on the right side.

I grieved that I was starting to dread feeding times.

He was only 2 weeks old and needed to eat about every 2 to three hours. There was no break. I had felt encouraged at the lactation consultant’s office the other day - finally getting answers for why I was hurting so badly - but now I felt like we may not make it.

The breastfeeding issues were really only a small branch of the larger early postpartum experience I’d had.

I was recovering emotionally and physically from an extremely intense natural birth - that wrecked my body and shook my spirit.
Even though I’d only had a small tear, it felt like my perineum would never heal.
I was horrified when I took a hand mirror to look at what was happening down there to discover a bulge coming from my vagina - a prolapse - one of the things I had feared most and worked hard to prevent in my pregnancy workouts.
On top of that, my butt ached deeply from my sacrum to my sits bones, and I had horrible hemorrhoids that made sitting and even reclining painful - none of my genius pillow formations seemed to help.
My belly felt… wobbly. Google said it would take 6 weeks for it to “heal” post-birth, but that did not appear to be happening. Besides unlocking all the body image issues from my teens and twenties, I felt just so foreign to this new body.
I feared I’d never be able to give birth again - that is, if I ever even could have sex again - and if I could, I’d most definitely make everything worse, and be walking around this way forever, unable to work out, unable to do the activities I love, and barely able to perform my duties as a mom.

And it felt like I’d done something wrong

because I, of all people, had PREPARED for this -

I had worked out my whole pregnancy to build endurance for birth and strengthen my body to reduce postpartum complications and pelvic floor problems. Hell, I had even hopped on the Peloton just hours before I went into labor.

I was primed for a breezy, juicy birth and a smooth, easy recovery.

The perineal pain, pelvic girdle aches, and raw nipples were compounded by grief over my birth experience - that ultimately was what I wanted, but didn’t go according to my vision.

I felt shame that I was struggling so much, because I literally help women with their pelvic floors professionally - I coach women in techniques to improve birth outcomes, I help them recover postpartum.

The fourth trimester is something we are talking about more but nothing fully encompassed the overlapping physical, emotional, and spiritual elements of my experience:

Learning to feed a baby without any training was one thing, but I was not prepared for the more atypical problems we encountered (nor did I have any clue they were not normal until I worked with my amazing lactation consultant).
The emotions of being alone late at night, not sure if you’ll ever sleep again and VERY sure your nipples will fall off
Body image issues you thought were long gone, reignited by seeing the effects of pregnancy and birth on my body
Trauma from birth and early postpartum intensifying the physical pain I felt
Fears that I may never get to run, dance, or ride a bike again
Grief over the unfounded belief that I wouldn’t be able to do this all again
Needing so much support and help, without family nearby, but not sure how to ask for help when so many people had such busy lives and families of their own to care for.

But slowly, I came out of the cave. I supported myself and I learned to receive as much support as was necessary. I surrounded myself with other mothers and with professionals who could walk me through the grief I felt and the unique transformation I had just undergone.

If I could go back and hold that 2-weeks postpartum version of myself, I would tell her so many things:

You’re going to feel at home in your body again
You’re going to be able to wear jeans again - AND feel cute in them
You’re going to be able to hold your son without your body aching
You’re going to be able to run and lift weights again, and you are going to come back stronger than before
You are going to LOVE breastfeeding and have a sweet and special bond with your baby boy, and a feeling of accomplishment for all you’ve been through to make it work.
You will sleep again, and your body is so resilient
Your hemorrhoids will heal
You’ll enjoy sex again and a deeper connection than ever with your husband
You will dance and enjoy and
You’ll even get to a point that you would WILLINGLY do this all over again

My postpartum experience might have been harder than some other moms, but I know so many feel the same.

The progress was slow, but through designing a unique exercise program to heal my pelvic floor AND my nervous system - that was ALL kinds of wound up from my birth and early postpartum trauma - and build back strength gently AND effectively.

I befriended my body in a new way - asking what it craved, asking what would be nourishing - i got support from professionals I trusted, even though as a pelvic PT and postpartum coach I KNEW I could DIY it.

I have no symptoms, and I don’t limit my activities unless my body just says that’s not what it wants.

I have a deep, intuitive connection with my son, with my husband, and I know we will grow our family one day. AND- I will do things differently. Or should i say, I will BE differently.

Because what I learned in this intense transformation of becoming a mother

that started long before I even conceived my baby, is that ALL of motherhood is surrender - physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We build strategies and we plan and we create systems that work, AND we hold our hands open to the twists and turns that we cannot control. We lean into trust - in God, in our bodies, in the process of becoming a mother (because sometimes it’s just HARD to be so new at such an all-encompassing job).

Intuition and softness is our greatest strength.

My physical recovery required surrender too - to my body’s process, to physiology, to the days when I had a workout planned but I just didn’t sleep. I learned to honor that and I know and love my body more than ever - even though there are days I still ache for my old body.

And yes, I can wear normal clothes that make me feel like myself again (and I wear a brand new size - it’s fun and beautiful!)

So mama, if you are craving some juicy support right now, let’s connect! You deserve it!

Let's Connect

To unlock it, you need support.