By Tracy Gates
“Is that really a smart thing to do?”
A guy at my gym asked a friend of mine this question not too long ago. She was playing squash. She was pregnant. Very.
Now how many of us have been in situations others deemed unadvisable? Motorcycling, say. Or skydiving. Or jumping from a cliff into a frigid mountain pool – at night – naked. (The first two I’ve never tried…. ) The risk, of course, is only to ourselves. This was different. I imagine that’s probably more along the lines of what this guy was thinking. But that’s not what my friend was thinking.
I have known this woman for a few years now. One day last fall we were chatting in the locker room. She takes a squash lesson at the same time as my favorite gym class, so I see her almost every week. In fact, I really see her, since we are both changing out of our sweaty workout clothes…so I couldn’t help noticing that she was getting kind of, um, puffy around the middle. Strange, I remember thinking, as the rest of her still looked lean and strong.
Admittedly, I’m a little slow to pick up on stuff, especially after an hour of heaving around weights, so it took a few more weeks for it to register what the cause was, and by then my friend had noticed me ogling her.
“Yup, I’m pregnant,” she confirmed, looking down a little sheepishly at her stomach and then raising her eyebrow at it as if she didn’t quite approve.
“And you’re playing squash,” I said, rather dumbly, as if I hadn’t seen her moments before on the court.
“I’m going to play as long as I can,” she said. “Maybe I’ll give birth on the court!” She raised her other eyebrow, perking up a bit.
Who would’ve known that that would be only a slight exaggeration?
I saw my friend pretty regularly after that, and occasionally caught a few glimpses of her on the court during her lesson. Except for the growing girth of her stomach, she looked as athletic as she did before her pregnancy. I remember thinking that if I were pregnant, I would want to be out on the court, too, looking like that. But for some reason, I never asked her how it actually felt to play, or why she decided on squash when she could’ve stepped it back to pre-natal yoga or swimming like many of my previously pregnant friends had. Think about it, would you play squash if you had your soon to be offspring bouncing around in your belly? Think of all the times you’ve nearly embraced the sidewall, almost collided with your opponent, had a near miss with a not so soft racquet. Last season I wore the imprint of racquet strings on my arm—my fault, by the way.
It wasn’t until after she’d had the baby that my curiosity finally kicked in. She had emailed an announcement of her daughter’s birth and besides the requisite weight and length, had mentioned that her daughter was sure to be a good squash player owing to the fact that the mother had been playing squash only hours before the birth. Yes, you heard that right, she was lunging around a court HOURS—just a few mind you—before she embarked on one of the most amazing events a body—okay, a woman—can achieve in her life. How many people do you know whom have done something so physically impressive? The Ironman may come close, but does anyone give birth at the finish line? No. I had to know her story.
“I love the smell of sweat,” she said, over a glass of mango iced tea. “I love sports. The camaraderie. How it makes me feel mentally and spiritually.”
I nodded. This is familiar territory to me (except maybe for the smell….). So I wasn’t totally surprised to learn that she was a lifetime athlete with a plethora of sports under her belt. She had danced ballet to ballroom, rowed Varsity crew, and was captain of her college rugby team. She took up the outdoor sports of cycling and climbing while in California, but finding a sport when she moved to New York City proved a challenge. What to do that was fun? It took a few years of gym going at the Printing House before trying out squash in 2008. It only took her a few months to become obsessed.
“I did the clinics. I took lessons. I joined the Round Robins. I would’ve played everyday if I could’ve.” Her smile is wide while she’s telling me this. Classic squash obsession. I know it well.
For over a year, she reveled in learning something new, with an unlimited capacity for fun. But then one morning about a year and a half into her obsession, a few hours before a squash lesson, she took “the test.”
“It seems I’m a little bit pregnant,” she remembers telling her instructor, and her face pinches up a little at the memory. She knows it is funny in retrospect, but the unspoken words might have been “…and I’m a lot scared.”
Of course, she’s quick to acknowledge that she and her husband were excited. She is in her late 30’s and having a baby wasn’t a sure thing. But think about it, you’re an athlete with an athlete’s body; you’re used to controlling your body. Now something else, someone else is going to control your body. Scary? Definitely.
So my friend took what control she had. She immediately looked up online any advice for active mothers to be and found that all advised consulting one’s doctor. But her doctor didn’t want to see her until the baby could be seen on the sonogram screen. The only solid piece of advice was to not let her heart rate go above 140. Okay, I can do that, she remembers thinking. She grabbed her heart rate monitor (am I the only person in NYC who doesn’t have one?) and ran-walked to her lesson.
“It was a joke,” she said. “A pregnant woman’s heart rate is elevated in the first trimester and I had to keep stopping to check my rate. There was no flow.” But she also didn’t want to give up and her instructor, the club pro, was as game as she was. He had trained another pregnant player and the woman had gotten through six months before she’d stopped. My friend immediately took that as a challenge. “I decided right then I wanted to go all nine months if I could,” she told me, a defiant look in her eye.
But then she had her first doctor’s appointment. “She was all about what I shouldn’t do.” Her voice turned cool as she imitated her doctor. “You shouldn’t play squash. You shouldn’t let your heart rate go above 140 . . . because you don’t want to know what happens to your baby if you do.” My friend knew what she should do. She should find a new doctor.
In the meantime, she found a book that gave her hope: Exercising Through Your Pregnancy by James F. Clapp III, M.D. http://www.amazon.com/Exercising-Through-Pregnancy-James-Clapp/dp/1886039593 Documented by the experiences of active and athletic mothers, it gave reason after reason why keeping active and continuing the sports you already participate in (within reason—competitive ski jumping, roller derby, and the like may be a no-no) can be good for both mother and baby’s health. It also dispelled the 140 heart rate rule. As did her new doctor whom she found through a friend.
“Get rid of the heart rate monitor,” Dr. Chen told her, explaining that it wasn’t much of an indication of how hard she was training and probably would only serve to distract her. Instead, Dr. Chen encouraged her to play squash as long as she stayed well hydrated and didn’t overheat. “Other than that,” my friend said, “her one rule for continuing to play was if I could say the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ under my breath as I played. If I didn’t have the breath to say them, I was to slow down or stop. I never got to that point though. I worked hard but at the same time was super cautious.”
Actually, my friend strikes me as more super self-informed than super cautious. And finding a doctor who understood and encouraged her athleticism was hugely important to her. The whole experience of being pregnant changed when she found Dr. Chen, a doctor who “treated me like an individual, a person, and not just another patient.”
Of course, playing as a pregnant lady was going to be different. “I stopped playing competitively pretty quickly. I wanted to be in a controlled environment, so instead of playing games, I trained and drilled.” There was still plenty she could practice and learn, especially as a novice—volleys, cross court lobs, reverse corner boasts, racquet preparation, strategy. Probably most impressive to anyone watching, however, were her court sprints. “I’d do five sets of ten and look up to see some guy’s eyes bugging out.” Hey, my eyes would’ve bugged out.
“Did it feel different?” I asked her, knowing my question wasn’t as specific as I wanted it to be and anticipating her answer—that it was hard to actually feel a difference since her body was changing gradually. “It did become increasingly more difficult,” she acknowledged. “I had to constantly modify my form, more for balance than anything. By the middle of my third trimester I didn’t have a lot of lunging ability. But I only had one bobble—landing on my butt.” She was fine, she added. “Emotionally, I felt great. Squash kept me feeling good about my body. It gave me structure and rhythm. It gave me joy.”
And physically? “I finally felt different the last two weeks,” she concurs. “Because I was so round. I was down in Chinatown and a Chinese man pointed at my belly and said “very, very soon.” Sometimes things come full circle. A few days later she was walking home from her squash lesson and her water broke. “Actually, I had stopped at a nail salon for a pedicure because I couldn’t reach my toes,” she admits, “and I was on the way to the restroom when I felt something go. Oh great, she remembers thinking, now I’m incontinent. But when it didn’t stop, she figured it out.
Things moved quickly after that. Although it wasn’t without some drama. By the time she and her husband got a taxi to the hospital she was pretty far into labor, so when they reached the hospital she was ready to deliver. Forty-five minutes later, without drugs, her daughter was born. 7 pounds 1 oz, 21 inches, and totally healthy. The new mother was ecstatic. Her next question to her doctor? “When can I play squash?”
My friend acknowledges that there is some good fortune involved in her experience. Good genes. An ideal child-bearing body. Great care. But she really believes that keeping active and specifically playing squash helped her have a great pregnancy and birth. Her advice for mothers-to-be? Find an educated, thoughtful, helpful health care provider who gets you and respects you. Do your research. Read the book she mentions. Know your personal limitations. Have common sense. After listing these, however, she turns more thoughtful. “I think it’s so important to prepare yourself physically. The actual birth is like a marathon; it’s really really hard. And you’d be nuts not to train to run a marathon.”
She was back at the gym in ten days after the delivery. In three weeks, she was back on the court. And I sat down with her to talk about all of this exactly four weeks from her daughter’s birth. She looked fantastic. Her goals now are to regain her reflexes and quickness. To start competing again. And to find a balance between motherhood and her life as an athlete. It helps, she acknowledges, to have a sympathetic spouse. “Part of my identity is being an athlete…now it’s also being a mother.”
I’m looking forward to seeing my friend being both in the years to come. Perhaps I’ll get to see her daughter on the squash court. It should feel totally natural to her. And I’ll tell her to thank her mother for that.
“Is that really a smart thing to do?”
A guy at my gym asked a friend of mine this question not too long ago. She was playing squash. She was pregnant. Very.
Now how many of us have been in situations others deemed unadvisable? Motorcycling, say. Or skydiving. Or jumping from a cliff into a frigid mountain pool – at night – naked. (The first two I’ve never tried…. ) The risk, of course, is only to ourselves. This was different. I imagine that’s probably more along the lines of what this guy was thinking. But that’s not what my friend was thinking.
I have known this woman for a few years now. One day last fall we were chatting in the locker room. She takes a squash lesson at the same time as my favorite gym class, so I see her almost every week. In fact, I really see her, since we are both changing out of our sweaty workout clothes…so I couldn’t help noticing that she was getting kind of, um, puffy around the middle. Strange, I remember thinking, as the rest of her still looked lean and strong.
Admittedly, I’m a little slow to pick up on stuff, especially after an hour of heaving around weights, so it took a few more weeks for it to register what the cause was, and by then my friend had noticed me ogling her.
“Yup, I’m pregnant,” she confirmed, looking down a little sheepishly at her stomach and then raising her eyebrow at it as if she didn’t quite approve.
“And you’re playing squash,” I said, rather dumbly, as if I hadn’t seen her moments before on the court.
“I’m going to play as long as I can,” she said. “Maybe I’ll give birth on the court!” She raised her other eyebrow, perking up a bit.
Who would’ve known that that would be only a slight exaggeration?
I saw my friend pretty regularly after that, and occasionally caught a few glimpses of her on the court during her lesson. Except for the growing girth of her stomach, she looked as athletic as she did before her pregnancy. I remember thinking that if I were pregnant, I would want to be out on the court, too, looking like that. But for some reason, I never asked her how it actually felt to play, or why she decided on squash when she could’ve stepped it back to pre-natal yoga or swimming like many of my previously pregnant friends had. Think about it, would you play squash if you had your soon to be offspring bouncing around in your belly? Think of all the times you’ve nearly embraced the sidewall, almost collided with your opponent, had a near miss with a not so soft racquet. Last season I wore the imprint of racquet strings on my arm—my fault, by the way.
It wasn’t until after she’d had the baby that my curiosity finally kicked in. She had emailed an announcement of her daughter’s birth and besides the requisite weight and length, had mentioned that her daughter was sure to be a good squash player owing to the fact that the mother had been playing squash only hours before the birth. Yes, you heard that right, she was lunging around a court HOURS—just a few mind you—before she embarked on one of the most amazing events a body—okay, a woman—can achieve in her life. How many people do you know whom have done something so physically impressive? The Ironman may come close, but does anyone give birth at the finish line? No. I had to know her story.
“I love the smell of sweat,” she said, over a glass of mango iced tea. “I love sports. The camaraderie. How it makes me feel mentally and spiritually.”
I nodded. This is familiar territory to me (except maybe for the smell….). So I wasn’t totally surprised to learn that she was a lifetime athlete with a plethora of sports under her belt. She had danced ballet to ballroom, rowed Varsity crew, and was captain of her college rugby team. She took up the outdoor sports of cycling and climbing while in California, but finding a sport when she moved to New York City proved a challenge. What to do that was fun? It took a few years of gym going at the Printing House before trying out squash in 2008. It only took her a few months to become obsessed.
“I did the clinics. I took lessons. I joined the Round Robins. I would’ve played everyday if I could’ve.” Her smile is wide while she’s telling me this. Classic squash obsession. I know it well.
For over a year, she reveled in learning something new, with an unlimited capacity for fun. But then one morning about a year and a half into her obsession, a few hours before a squash lesson, she took “the test.”
“It seems I’m a little bit pregnant,” she remembers telling her instructor, and her face pinches up a little at the memory. She knows it is funny in retrospect, but the unspoken words might have been “…and I’m a lot scared.”
Of course, she’s quick to acknowledge that she and her husband were excited. She is in her late 30’s and having a baby wasn’t a sure thing. But think about it, you’re an athlete with an athlete’s body; you’re used to controlling your body. Now something else, someone else is going to control your body. Scary? Definitely.
So my friend took what control she had. She immediately looked up online any advice for active mothers to be and found that all advised consulting one’s doctor. But her doctor didn’t want to see her until the baby could be seen on the sonogram screen. The only solid piece of advice was to not let her heart rate go above 140. Okay, I can do that, she remembers thinking. She grabbed her heart rate monitor (am I the only person in NYC who doesn’t have one?) and ran-walked to her lesson.
“It was a joke,” she said. “A pregnant woman’s heart rate is elevated in the first trimester and I had to keep stopping to check my rate. There was no flow.” But she also didn’t want to give up and her instructor, the club pro, was as game as she was. He had trained another pregnant player and the woman had gotten through six months before she’d stopped. My friend immediately took that as a challenge. “I decided right then I wanted to go all nine months if I could,” she told me, a defiant look in her eye.
But then she had her first doctor’s appointment. “She was all about what I shouldn’t do.” Her voice turned cool as she imitated her doctor. “You shouldn’t play squash. You shouldn’t let your heart rate go above 140 . . . because you don’t want to know what happens to your baby if you do.” My friend knew what she should do. She should find a new doctor.
In the meantime, she found a book that gave her hope: Exercising Through Your Pregnancy by James F. Clapp III, M.D. http://www.amazon.com/Exercising-Through-Pregnancy-James-Clapp/dp/1886039593 Documented by the experiences of active and athletic mothers, it gave reason after reason why keeping active and continuing the sports you already participate in (within reason—competitive ski jumping, roller derby, and the like may be a no-no) can be good for both mother and baby’s health. It also dispelled the 140 heart rate rule. As did her new doctor whom she found through a friend.
“Get rid of the heart rate monitor,” Dr. Chen told her, explaining that it wasn’t much of an indication of how hard she was training and probably would only serve to distract her. Instead, Dr. Chen encouraged her to play squash as long as she stayed well hydrated and didn’t overheat. “Other than that,” my friend said, “her one rule for continuing to play was if I could say the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ under my breath as I played. If I didn’t have the breath to say them, I was to slow down or stop. I never got to that point though. I worked hard but at the same time was super cautious.”
Actually, my friend strikes me as more super self-informed than super cautious. And finding a doctor who understood and encouraged her athleticism was hugely important to her. The whole experience of being pregnant changed when she found Dr. Chen, a doctor who “treated me like an individual, a person, and not just another patient.”
Of course, playing as a pregnant lady was going to be different. “I stopped playing competitively pretty quickly. I wanted to be in a controlled environment, so instead of playing games, I trained and drilled.” There was still plenty she could practice and learn, especially as a novice—volleys, cross court lobs, reverse corner boasts, racquet preparation, strategy. Probably most impressive to anyone watching, however, were her court sprints. “I’d do five sets of ten and look up to see some guy’s eyes bugging out.” Hey, my eyes would’ve bugged out.
“Did it feel different?” I asked her, knowing my question wasn’t as specific as I wanted it to be and anticipating her answer—that it was hard to actually feel a difference since her body was changing gradually. “It did become increasingly more difficult,” she acknowledged. “I had to constantly modify my form, more for balance than anything. By the middle of my third trimester I didn’t have a lot of lunging ability. But I only had one bobble—landing on my butt.” She was fine, she added. “Emotionally, I felt great. Squash kept me feeling good about my body. It gave me structure and rhythm. It gave me joy.”
And physically? “I finally felt different the last two weeks,” she concurs. “Because I was so round. I was down in Chinatown and a Chinese man pointed at my belly and said “very, very soon.” Sometimes things come full circle. A few days later she was walking home from her squash lesson and her water broke. “Actually, I had stopped at a nail salon for a pedicure because I couldn’t reach my toes,” she admits, “and I was on the way to the restroom when I felt something go. Oh great, she remembers thinking, now I’m incontinent. But when it didn’t stop, she figured it out.
Things moved quickly after that. Although it wasn’t without some drama. By the time she and her husband got a taxi to the hospital she was pretty far into labor, so when they reached the hospital she was ready to deliver. Forty-five minutes later, without drugs, her daughter was born. 7 pounds 1 oz, 21 inches, and totally healthy. The new mother was ecstatic. Her next question to her doctor? “When can I play squash?”
My friend acknowledges that there is some good fortune involved in her experience. Good genes. An ideal child-bearing body. Great care. But she really believes that keeping active and specifically playing squash helped her have a great pregnancy and birth. Her advice for mothers-to-be? Find an educated, thoughtful, helpful health care provider who gets you and respects you. Do your research. Read the book she mentions. Know your personal limitations. Have common sense. After listing these, however, she turns more thoughtful. “I think it’s so important to prepare yourself physically. The actual birth is like a marathon; it’s really really hard. And you’d be nuts not to train to run a marathon.”
She was back at the gym in ten days after the delivery. In three weeks, she was back on the court. And I sat down with her to talk about all of this exactly four weeks from her daughter’s birth. She looked fantastic. Her goals now are to regain her reflexes and quickness. To start competing again. And to find a balance between motherhood and her life as an athlete. It helps, she acknowledges, to have a sympathetic spouse. “Part of my identity is being an athlete…now it’s also being a mother.”
I’m looking forward to seeing my friend being both in the years to come. Perhaps I’ll get to see her daughter on the squash court. It should feel totally natural to her. And I’ll tell her to thank her mother for that.
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