How I became a PT
I sort of fell into physical therapy, which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. I came into college knowing I wanted to do something in athletics. My family was a sports family — one brother went into athletic training, another ran his own personal training business — and I tried athletic training first.
One year in, assigned to the football team, working every practice and every game, I realized the schedule was incompatible with school and with having any other kind of life. Sophomore year I started shadowing OT, nursing, and PT, and I ended up in an orthopedic clinic in my college town. I switched my major almost immediately. It turned out I really did love it.
Ten years of orthopedics
I started my career at Benchmark Physical Therapy (now part of Upstream Rehab) right after graduating from the University of Dayton Doctor of Physical Therapy program. They paid for my orthopedic residency through IAMT — a year-and-a-half program — and in 2017 I sat for my boards and earned my Orthopedic Certified Specialist credential.
That foundation matters. The pelvic floor doesn't live in isolation. It is a network of muscles attached to the hips, the back, the ribcage, and the abdominal wall. When patients come in with pelvic pain, leaking, or postpartum dysfunction, I am evaluating all of that — not just the part you came in for.
For most of those orthopedic years, I knew pelvic health was adjacent to what I was already doing well. I took a basic external pelvic course early on, and I started screening orthopedic patients for pelvic involvement and referring them out. It wasn't until something happened to me that I decided to go all the way in.
The reason I do this work
In October of 2022 I had my first daughter. I had a fourth-degree tear during delivery — a serious birth injury most people have never heard of. About five weeks postpartum, my stitches got infected, which set me back physically for months. I couldn't walk well. I couldn't return to the gym for nearly twelve weeks. I struggled with urinary, fecal, and gas incontinence. I went to pelvic floor PT for over a year, and I am still in therapy on and off three pregnancies later.
I had imagined my postpartum looking like long walks with my baby and slowly getting my body back. That is not what happened.
What I learned during my own treatment was how transformative this work is — and how few women know it exists. I decided I needed to be one of the people changing that. I went back through IAMT for my pelvic health certification, finished the four-course series in 2024, and built this practice to give women the kind of care that actually got me back to running my life.
My second daughter, and a different kind of trauma
For my second pregnancy I scheduled a planned C-section. After the first birth, I couldn't fathom going through that again. The C-section itself didn't go smoothly either — I had an allergic reaction to the surgical strips, my blood pressure crashed, I was hypothermic and hypotensive, and I spent five hours in the recovery room when I had been told to expect one.
The reason I share this is because so many patients walk in carrying their own version of "this didn't go the way I thought it would." Birth trauma is birth trauma whether it happened during a vaginal delivery or a C-section. I have lived both ends of that spectrum, and patients who come in for postpartum care, especially after a hard delivery or unexpected outcome, deserve to know that they are not going to surprise me.
Pregnancy number three
I'm pregnant with my third right now. After everything I've been through, I will be honest — I was terrified to do this again. We considered adopting. But here we are.
I'm planning an unmedicated water VBAC at a small hospital across the state line in Alabama, working with a doctor who practices almost like a midwife. I'm doing the same birth prep I do with my patients. I'm preparing my body differently than I did the first or second time, because I know now what I didn't know then. Whatever happens, I will be telling you about it on the other side.
My family
My husband is in the National Guard, full-time, and will retire at the Marietta headquarters in about eight years. We bought land here, built a house, and Bremen is our forever home. Our two daughters are three and one and have a third sibling on the way. We have two dogs: a miniature golden doodle and a rescued Yorkie poo mix who we are pretty sure is part everything.
My favorite thing in town is the patio at The Stock Room, which is where you'll find us most Saturdays.
The athlete piece
Before kids, I was on the soccer field most weekends, and at the CrossFit gym six days a week — competing through my gym, traveling to Utah and Colorado, hiking fourteen-hundred-foot ridges, doing all of it. Postpartum wrecked me physically more than I was prepared for, and getting back to that version of myself has been a years-long project.
That is also why I love treating return-to-sport patients — especially CrossFit athletes, runners, lifters, and anyone trying to rebuild their athletic identity after pregnancy. I have lived that frustration. I know how disorienting it is to feel like a stranger in your own body. And I know what it takes to come back.
My credentials, in detail
DPT
Doctor of Physical Therapy
University of Dayton, 2014. The clinical doctorate required to practice physical therapy.
OCS
Orthopedic Certified Specialist
Board certification through the American Physical Therapy Association, earned in 2017 after a year-and-a-half orthopedic residency. Fewer than 10 percent of practicing PTs hold a board specialty.
Pelvic Health Certified
IAMT Pelvic Health Certification
A four-course certification through the Institute of Advanced Musculoskeletal Treatments — the same residency program that trained her in orthopedics. Completed 2024.
Cert-DN
Certified in Dry Needling
Trained in trigger-point dry needling for myofascial pain. Dry needling requires a physician referral in Georgia.
ASTYM Certified
ASTYM Soft Tissue Treatment
Augmented soft tissue mobilization for scar, fascia, and chronic soft tissue restrictions.
Manual Therapy
Manual Therapy Certified
Trained in hands-on joint mobilization, soft tissue release, and manual techniques during her IAMT orthopedic residency.
The bigger goal
Long term, I want this to be a 20-hour-a-week practice that lets me be present for my daughters and still be the pelvic floor PT this community can rely on. I'm not interested in growing into a multi- provider clinic. I want to be the therapist patients can find, schedule with, and trust — for the next 30 years.