When forward Ryan Gareis subbed in for the Houston Dash in their September 2024 away game against the Washington Spirit, it was a moment that was months in the making. Throughout her soccer career, she’d waited on the sidelines countless times for a teammate to tag her in, but this time was special.

It was Gareis’s first game back after giving birth to her son, Crew.

“It felt like my first soccer game ever,” she said. “I was just really proud of myself because that’s a huge personal achievement.”

To make her return even more impressive: it took her just four months to return to play after giving birth.

That’s where Dorcas Copa, DPT comes in. Simply and lovingly known as Copa, she is the team’s physical therapist, and she is now responsible for designing a plan to help new mothers back onto the field. Her work typically includes more traditional soccer injuries and getting players rehabilitated, but this presented a new kind of challenge that needed a new kind of solution.

Her “playbook” is one of the first of its kind for helping female professional athletes return to play after giving birth.

Copa has become something of a leader in this field over the last few years, even taking her findings to Spain for FIFA’s Isokinetic Medical Conference earlier this month. In addition to Gareis, left back Allysha Chapman (Chappy) and defender Katie Lind also gave birth in succession – setting a league record last season for the most players out on maternity leave at the same time.

Helping women return back to their professional form is something that Copa knew would come into play eventually, so she and her team studied and did research preparing for the moment they would need it. They kept an eye on new women’s health and pelvic health research, took courses, and soaked up as much information as they could find.

“As soon as the first player told us she was pregnant, then I was like, ‘Alright, it’s go time,’” Copa said.

Copa said there is not much that is set in stone in terms of available information or formal guidance on returning to exercise, but the guidelines she learned in school just six years ago now felt limited and incorrect.

All of this is to say that Copa and her team were learning as they went, and while protecting the players from coming back too quickly, they also refused to hold the players back from what they were capable of doing.

“It was really important for us to understand safe timelines because we don’t want to limit them too much. A lot of previous ideas about women and their health, it was so limiting,” she said. “We wanted to make sure it was progressive to get them back in, but we also wanted to make sure it was at a safe timeline.”

This work starts when a player announces her pregnancy. The first step is communication to learn what each woman’s goals are. If they continue to train with the team, they would wear a heart rate monitor to keep an eye on exertion levels. When they inevitably go on leave, Copa and her team get in contact with the player’s personal team of physicians and maintain that communication through the birth.

After maternity leave when a player returns to the Houston facilities, the medical team screens each person to collect information. On top of the normal physical screen they provide for any player who misses time, they learn everything – pertinent details from giving birth that might impact exercise, if they are breastfeeding, how they feel day to day, if they are seeing a dietitian. It is all taken into consideration.

“I think all injuries and return to play need some individualization. It takes attention to detail in order to be successful,” Copa said. “They were all in their own right teaching me how to do this in their own way. I wanted to make this better for the next person and the next person.”

When Gareis returned to the Dash, she was already doing some running and jumping, so her initial nerves about coming back had subsided, but having Copa and her team helped her feel confident in getting back on the pitch.

“She just met me where I was at. Something I respected and that helped so much is she just asked for feedback and paid attention to how I was feeling each day because there is no specific protocol,” Gareis said. “She fed a lot off me, and we worked together, which was super helpful. She didn’t push anything that maybe shouldn’t have been pushed, but she also knew that we can test things out if I was feeling good. She just helped me find the perfect balance of being careful and safe versus being too timid or scared to push things further.”

This is something Copa came back to over and over, the idea that new mothers can do more than the limited research has, to this point, implied – especially as someone’s body recovers from both pregnancy itself and giving birth.

“Being a woman and being a mom and giving birth has been given a little bit of fragility around it, but it’s such an immense thing to do with your body,” Copa said. “I hope that other moms can see that their bodies are truly resilient. I’ve not noticed any fragility about these players. They’re tough as anybody, even more so. Their motivation is high. Their joy is high. It’s hopeful and inspiring.”

While neither Copa nor Gareis set any kind of expectation for when she (or any other players) might return to the pitch, she found that – regardless of how long Gareis, Chappy, and Lind took for maternity leave – each player was back to play in about 20 weeks.

“We do have timelines for other injuries. An ACL [injury] is going to be training again in maybe nine months, so we work our way backwards,” Copa said. “This one, we had to work our way forward and give pieces of time for any flexibility we needed in case it actually needed more or less. That was a different approach compared to other injuries I had worked with.”

With essentially three case studies, Copa documented what she learned and built a plan, combining science-backed methods and what she was witnessing every day. It was an opportunity that was as much about preparation as it was about timing.

“It just so happened to be that way. It was one of those right place, right time moments,” she said. “I got to put my all into it because it’s such an amazing puzzle. A lot of the times I deal with injuries, it’s sad. It’s sad to tear your ACL and be out for a while and it impacts your career, but when you have a baby, it’s happy. Not only am I honored and not only do I get to solve the puzzle that I think is hugely important, but it’s a happy, joyful time.”

As happy as Copa is to be a part of those moments, Gareis said she and the club of new moms love sharing the baby updates and stories with Copa and the rest of their team just as much as she loves sharing her work life with her son.

“It's so cool for him to see me pursue my dreams, and he loves getting to come on the field,” she said. “He's a year old, so he doesn't completely grasp any of it, but … when he's older, I want him to know that he has a really cool mom who pursued her dream and he has all of these aunties who can be insanely awesome role models, these strong women that are in his life.”

Getting back on the field and getting back to her teammates, Gareis said it felt like a piece of her fell back into place. Watching other players do this before her, she always knew she wanted to be one of the “baddest of badasses” who became mothers while playing the game they love.

Being a professional athlete who gives birth is a unique experience, and as women’s professional sports continue to grow rapidly, this club will grow right along with it. Gareis, who is engaged to Milwaukee Bucks player Pat Connaughton, saw just how different the experience of parental leave is for male and female athletes.

“For our job, like, we can't play up until the day of your birth … Guys don’t have to think about it. They don’t change their lives at all [before the baby is born],” she said.

In the homestretch of Gareis’s pregnancy, the Bucks were in the middle of a playoff run.

“When I got close to the due date, it was like, ‘Is he going to be playing out of town? Is he going to be nearby?’ I think he gives more kudos to women in the league who’ve had babies because you really do adjust your whole life. Something that is such a big part of your identity, being a professional athlete, gets taken away for longer than people may expect,” she said. “To me, it makes the comeback even more amazing because your body’s changing and you're going through so much in pregnancy – emotionally, physically, mentally – and it all happens before the baby actually comes.”

Of course, the next leg of returning comes after giving birth, but for someone who makes a career based on physicality, getting back to form in those postpartum weeks and months is critical and nervewrecking.

“The reservations I had were just that I hope I could come back stronger and better and adapt to this whole new life but be able to perform at my best,” Gareis said. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could have a baby and return to play in the same season, just to get my feet under me, playing however many games that allowed. The fact that I got [get back on the field before the season ended] was everything to me because it gave me the confidence going into the offseason. I knew that I was all set.”

On the other side, seeing Gareis, Chappy, and Lind get back onto the field was the culmination of a special journey.

“This is where I get a little emotional,” Copa said. “Them getting back and seeing them come back in the facility every day like they hadn’t left is huge. They come in with their baby pictures and stories. You talk about the words they’re saying and how they’re walking now. It’s such an honor to be part of their community.”