Jess Quinn talks about motherhood, health and her mission. Photo / Ruby Hamilton
One morning recently, Jess Quinn experienced her most unexpected parenting moment. Marching into the bedroom with the determination of a wee soldier was Marla, her almost 2-year-old daughter, who’d decided she wanted to wear mummy’s prosthetic limb that day.
Woman’s health advocate Jess, who lost her right leg to bone cancer at age 8, was left pondering how she could explain it in a way that would make sense to a tantruming toddler.
“Marla hasn’t quite grasped the concept of me needing my leg to walk,” laughs Jess, 32. “I had to say, ‘you can put it on, but if you want to have a fun day, then Mummy needs to wear it’.
“My disability is just so normalised for her. But I imagine the questions are going to start coming as she pieces together the fact that, ‘oh, my mummy’s different’.
“I remember my dad has always had a stutter and it was so normal that I didn’t realise until I got older that it was something unique to him.”
It’s been a manic morning for Jess before she chats with the Weekly, catching up with us between media interviews for her new business – supplement range Cadence – as well as running the free women’s health platform called The Cyclist, which she launched earlier this year.
Co-founded with fellow mum Katherine Douglas, The Cyclist is a website, blog and podcast aimed at educating and supporting women through various stages of reproductive health, and includes resources from medical experts, plus real-life stories submitted by its members.
It tackles everything from puberty to prolapse, fertility, hysterectomies, menopause and more.
Jess says the platform was born from both her and Katherine’s shared experience of years feeling dismissed and lost in the healthcare system, and left to figure their bodies out on their own.
“So many times in our health journey, we asked, ‘why weren’t we taught this in school’?” she shares. “We’re really passionate about educating women on their bodies. Hearing what other people are going through is comforting.
“When I started speaking about my fertility journey and endometriosis online, my inbox had never been so flooded in my life. That was the moment I thought women are really craving this kind of information.
“While there are many great people working in our healthcare system, in our experience, there is also a lot of gaslighting by doctors that over a very long time turns into self-gaslighting – when you start doubting your own symptoms and don’t back yourself.
“Yet so many women’s journeys – particularly mine and Kat’s – could have been shorter and a lot less traumatic had we been equipped with the information we’re now putting out.
“We want The Cyclist to foster a community of women going through the same thing, so they know they’re not alone. A huge part of it is, once you have the knowledge set, it gives you the confidence to advocate for yourself.”
Juggling her new roles with motherhood (hello, sleep deprivation) and chronic pain isn’t easy, and the normally upbeat Jess wants to be real about it.
While her default setting in the past might have been “fake it until you make it”, she no longer wants to be anything but authentic.
She’s talking about one of the toughest parts as an amputee mum – not being able to quickly get up in the night when she hears little Marla cry out for her.
Jess explains, “she’s going through a bit of a sleep regression at the moment. My husband Todd feels guilty if I’m hobbling around trying to put the leg on and off several times, but then I feel guilty he’s doing it all.
“There’s nothing worse than lying there hearing her yelling out for me, because sometimes there’s a parental preference. I wish I could jump up and run to her but I can’t.”
Jess has always been known on social media as an advocate for body positivity, but she’s “still human” and sometimes needs to preach that self-acceptance to herself when negative feelings creep in.
“Todd knows that I want Marla to grow up in a family that doesn’t put focus on what our bodies look like, but rather what they’re capable of,” she tells. “So he’ll call me out if he hears me speaking unkindly about myself – usually before my period is due.
“I actually have a body image song that I sing to her in the bath … ‘I love my body from my head to my toes!’ It’s really cute. Marla’s such a chatterbox and repeats so many words, I have to start being careful about what I’m saying.”
The couple’s journey to parenthood hasn’t been straightforward. Jess went years with undiagnosed endometriosis. Doctors would give her brochures for irritable bowel syndrome until she was finally diagnosed in her mid-20s via laparoscopic surgery.
After her cancer treatment, she didn’t know if getting pregnant was even a possibility.
She and Todd, 36, a software engineer, took a year “desperately trying to conceive” before having a miscarriage.
“I was actually modelling at a photo shoot when my first miscarriage happened,” recalls Jess. “It was horrific. But if we hadn’t had our first miscarriage, we wouldn’t have got Marla. We both couldn’t imagine life without her. She’s the sweetest, best kid on the planet.
“My second miscarriage recently was less physically hard on my body and easier to go through the grief. I feel kind of guilty saying that because it’s still a baby that would have meant a lot to us.
“Todd’s very strong, pragmatic and a great support system. He was able to be like, ‘this wasn’t our time’. So I’m trying to trust the process and not get too caught up in taking five pregnancy tests a month. But I’m not winning that battle!”
Understandably, following her cancer and ongoing struggles with endometriosis, health anxiety has always lurked in the shadows. But for the past 18 months, Jess reveals she has been struggling with anxiety as a whole.
“I felt like I had that condition most of my life, in the sense of overthinking things and having anxious habits,” tells Jess candidly, chatting from her Auckland home. “So I claimed I had it.
“I’d hear people talking about their horrific anxiety and think to myself, ‘it’s not that bad’. Then I began having really bad panic attacks about four months after Marla was born. I thought, ‘wow, now I understand what they were going through and how horribly crippling it is’.”
At times, the new mum was having close to five panic episodes a day, some while driving. It got to the point she needed to call Todd to help get her home.
“It’s been pretty scary,” she confesses. “I think it came from a combination of taking on new business ventures, going through a lot of health issues, while also being a new mum. It tipped me over the edge and all just came to a head.
“I have actually gone on medication to support myself and it’s definitely helped. I’m hoping to come off it soon, once I’ve mastered the tools my body needs.”
Those include breathing techniques, meditation, journalling and working with a therapist doing EMDR – eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing – a type of psychotherapy that helps people heal from trauma using eye movements, tapping or sounds.
Jess is also grateful to have the support of seeing her mother Debby, “the best mum and grandma in the world”, most days.
“When I was sick as a child, she always repeated the mantra to me: ‘Stay positive, stay positive’,” remembers Jess. “It’s like Dory on repeat in my head. Even for all she’s been through, Mum has a really positive outlook on life. I want to instil that in Marla.”
Slowing down, offloading what’s on her plate a bit and allowing for vulnerability is something which the entrepreneur and social media star is getting used to. Instead of showing up only when she’s “crushing” it in life, she shows up when also feeling crushed.
“In the past, when I spoke to the media, I probably talked a lot of toxic positivity,” reflects Jess. “But for the past five years, I’ve been challenged by my prosthetic leg in a way that I’ve never been challenged before. And as a mum, I’ve recently felt quite disabled by my disability.”
For a long time, adversity was this thing Jess thought she needed to overcome.
“Then I realised that adversity just keeps knocking on my door!” she says. “So for me, it’s learning to live alongside it.
“I have so much good in my life,” she enthuses. “I consider myself a very lucky person. People might hear me say that and think, ‘are you sure’? But honestly, all the luck shadows the unluckiness.
“I’m most proud of the way I’ve come out the other side of some really hard things and feel grateful to live alongside adversity.”
How would you describe your little girl?
Marla has this amazing energy about her and I see the way she impacts the world already. When we’re at cafes, people gravitate to her. Todd and I are really introverted people, but we’ve somehow managed to create an extrovert to a huge degree. We love her to pieces.
What do you want your daughter to grow up knowing that you wish you had known?
To listen to her body, trust her instincts and know that her symptoms are important. We want her to have the confidence to advocate for herself and who she is as a person. I’ve obviously been through a lot in my life, so I have a few nerves about what’s going to be handed down to her health-wise. I just hope that she gets Todd’s genes!
Most interesting person you’ve interviewed for your podcast?
A lady called Prue Craven, who was born without a uterus and had one of the first womb transplants in Australia in 2023.
One thing you think doctors should stop telling young women…
That they need to have children to cure their endo.
For more information, visit wearethecyclist.com and cadencewellbeing.com.