This past spring, whenever I went to CVS for a pregnancy
test or prenatal vitamins, my receipt included a coupon for tampons. (Other
purchases warranted different coupons.) “Nope,” said CVS with a sneer. “No baby
this month.” It was like a slap in the face. Because dammit, CVS, for months
you were right.
I was originally
optimistic about the ease of transitioning from serious runner to mother-to-be
because of how many young mamas raced at the Trials. But once I was stressed
enough to overanalyze it, I realized that in all the stories I’d heard (or
Googled) the women got pregnant right away (within two months at most). But then
I started to wonder: What happened to all
the women that took a while to conceive? Those that had to step away from the
sport for longer, for all the months of trying, before they got pregnant? What
about women who miscarried? Statistically, these women must exist. Do they not share their stories? Did I
selectively forget them in an effort to be positive about quickly conceiving?
(Very possibly yes.) Or does staying in
the sport require getting pregnant right away to minimize time away? I read
a blog about how to plan your pregnancy around your running life, even down to
scheduling it so you can be sidelined during your least favorite season, and—while
the post tried to gently mention this wasn’t possible for everyone—it made me
want to punch the computer. Who can
conceive with such precision?! I’d just like to get pregnant sometime in
the near future, please and thank you.
More recently I
found an old post from Lauren Fleshman about how the unrelenting Olympic
cycle makes this a serious problem for women pro runners. “You better hope your
pipes work in the first few months of your off-season because the clock is
a’ticking. Miss your window and you have to wait.”
But I’m not a pro
runner. And while I do think in Olympic [Trials] cycles, my job/earnings/etc.
don’t depend on my ability to run. So it felt incredibly selfish to be stressed
about getting pregnant right away because of running. I wanted a baby quickly
for other reasons of course (I wanted to start a family, and generally when you
want something, you want it to start as soon as possible). But every time I honestly thought about why I wanted it to happen ASAP, it came
back to running.
Because my
running was already a mess. At first I thought I could race some summer 5Ks, or
at least aim for them, and then possibly skip them once The Stick told us the
good news. But then I started to worry even that was too much… the books and
literature made the odds of conception each month seem shockingly small. (I
would not recommend them for a high
school Sex Ed class.) There’s not much you can do to help the process; you can
try to time it correctly, pray about it, not stress over it. (Good luck on the
last one). And—as nearly every book will gently remind you—you can stop all
that running nonsense.
Most books about
pregnancy (nearly all) aren’t written with a serious athlete in mind. They talk
about hormones and how running too much (like over an hour) will mess up your
chances of getting pregnant. But what if an hour run isn’t a hard effort for
you? And pros have gotten pregnant in the middle of serious training or in the
Olympic village, without giving their bodies a break. But obviously not
everyone is that lucky, and who knows where I fell?
As the stress
grew (What if this run is a hair too long
or a beat too fast and I’ve screwed up this month’s chances??) the risk
seemed too great. I gave up workouts, races, and long runs. Now that I’m
happily and blessedly pregnant, I regret that slightly. I have a long road of
reduced running ahead, and I wish I had started in slightly better shape. But
it’s easy for me to say that now; at the time, I didn’t know who to believe and
was too worried about everything I was doing. For the record, there are books
(like this one) and doctors (like my new one, thank goodness) who say it’s
totally fine for athletes to keep up their running routine while trying to
conceive (so long as you are normal weight and get your period). I didn’t have
those influences at the time.
As soon as I
stopped training, I missed it. I was still running,
yes, but I immediately missed the hard workouts, looking ahead to a race,
really pushing myself and feeling simultaneously completely spent and
exhilarated. The books warned not to worry about the extra flab or squishiness
you may gain while trying to conceive, but I didn’t give a crap about any of
that. I missed the competition and the readying myself for it. And I kept
ruminating on this idea of what if it takes a long time to get pregnant? Every
failed month meant one more month away. But those worries devolved into
wondering: What if I can’t get pregnant,
ever? And then I’d berate myself: Why
the fudge am I worrying about running?! Who cares about such a dumb, selfish
hobby?! I just want a baby!
But, in July, we
got that happiest news that pee can deliver. Five months post Trials and I was
pregnant. I’m fully aware of how incredibly blessed I am to have gotten
pregnant and to have had a healthy pregnancy thus far. But just because my
struggle turned out to not be that long, I didn’t want to forget how
frustrating it was. In my anxious Googling, I didn’t find much about balancing
running and trying to conceive, just
article after article about running while pregnant. And I certainly didn’t find
anything about the emotional battles of being a runner and trying. Times of
stress normally make me turn to a hard run for an emotional cleansing—but, in this case, that
just led to more questioning.
I wish I had helpful
advice for those struggling, but I don’t. (One of the unexpected annoyances of
pregnancy, in my opinion, is the ever-constant reminder, “Every pregnancy is
different.” There are no hard and fast rules about anything, including exactly
how hard and fast you can work out. You’ll need to talk to a doctor—preferably one with
a healthy appreciation for a running obsession—for individualized advice.) But
I can lend some understanding and agree that it’s really hard and frustrating
and annoying and discouraging and stressful and feels impossibly long.
But I really hope
it’s not impossibly long. And that one day, you’ll get the pee result that will
give an ultimate F U to those CVS receipts.
Shut up, CVS. This time you're wrong. |
UPDATE: Thanks in part to your comments, I was inspired to look into this more deeply (and get some real advice from professionals) for a Runner's World article. Check it out here.
Dream big,
Dream big,
Teal