What a season.
Since May, I was pregnant in every tournament that I played in. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would still be competing at five months pregnant. My view on pregnancy as an athlete has always been black and white: The moment you get pregnant, your career is immediately put on hold.
But that’s not what happened. I remember telling my partner Nicci after a practice one day that I was pregnant, and I’d been worried that she wouldn’t want to compete with me anymore. However, her reaction was one of pure joy for me (so much so that others around found out I was pregnant because she was so happy for me, haha). I was honest with her and told her that we’d have to take it one tournament at a time and that I had no idea how I was going to feel or how I was going to perform. She was willing to take that risk with me and compete together for as long as I was able. Another unexpected blessing!
Sure, I didn’t feel my best in some of the tournaments I played in. I was slower both mentally and physically and not able to jump as high as I was before. But we had some incredible memories from this season. We played in the longest tournament ever in Minnesota, competing from 7:30am until 12:30am the next morning and playing through rain, sunshine, and under the lights, and ultimately taking third. We traveled all the way to Nicaragua when I was eight weeks pregnant to compete in a NORCECA, and we podiumed with a third place. The worries going into that tournament were massive, and I constantly questioned whether or not it was the right decision to go. I imagined I would get food poisoning, get sick from the water, all of a sudden have morning sickness and be throwing up on the sidelines, or get some type of injury or heatstroke in the hot weather. But…none of that happened, and my worries were for nothing! We placed fifth in the Denver AVP, which was likely the most fun tournament of the year for me as I got to compete eleven weeks pregnant and with my parents, brother, husband, and other friends cheering us on. We qualified for the Manhattan AVP, and even though the results weren’t the best, it was such a gift to me that I was able to compete in the granddaddy of all beach volleyball tournaments while four months pregnant. After tough losses in both Virginia Beach and Manhattan, we gained some momentum again and took third at the Labor Day Weekend Hermosa Beach CBVA. Our final tournament of the season was the qualifier for the Hermosa Open, where I competed five months pregnant to the day.
The little baby growing inside me (that only a few people in the volleyball community knew about for many weeks) was my motivation. Sometimes, I would go back to serve and take a moment to remember that I was playing at a high level with a little human growing inside me. It totally blew my mind!!
God created our bodies to do amazing, incredible, unimaginable things. He heard me and all my worries about being a pregnant athlete and totally blew my expectations out of the water. Whether those around me gave me a concerned look when I told them I was still competing while pregnant or encouraged me to keep going, my husband and I knew what God wanted me to continue doing: playing the game He gave me the ability to play, glorifying Him as much as I could along the way. Through my fears and doubts, God proved to be both faithful and trustworthy. And while He gave me the grace of being able to compete until five months pregnant, He also showed me the limitations of the human body at five months pregnant. That last tournament, I performed the worst of the entire summer. Maybe I just didn’t get enough rest that week, or maybe it was my pelvis pain that was holding me back, but every point felt like a struggle in a way that I had never experienced before. Of course, I would have loved to have made it into the main draw, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to make it there.
This season showed me a whole new layer of God’s grace in the ways that He provided everything I needed—strength when I felt weak, courage when I was afraid, energy when I was exhausted, and peace when I was worried. I was extended grace by an amazing human and partner in Nicci, who stuck with this unpredictable pregnant lady when she could’ve dumped me at any moment.
I was also shown the limitations of the human body. I wanted so badly to say, “Yes, I qualified for the main draw of a tournament when I was five months pregnant!” But there was no amount of striving that would make that happen. Truth is, I was toast that day. And that’s okay. Because I had five months of arguably the most unforgettable season of my life. And for that, I will be forever grateful.
“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).