My professional playing career was over before I became a mother, but the idea of taking that journey and successfully merging these two worlds and simultaneously thriving in both seemed a fool's errand.
I made this observation while playing in Iceland, a country where so many women choose this journey, and where each child is quite literally raised by a village. In Iceland, at best, it seemed daunting. In the U.S., it seemed nearly impossible.
Here I was meticulously planning what I ate, when I ate it, when I could fit in an ideal length nap before practice, and then finally settle in for an early bedtime at the end of the day. Everything was done for the purpose of maximizing my performance on the soccer field.
A baby comes along, and schedules are a thing of the past, sleep is a distant dream, and your "meals" are your toddler's leftover scraps.
My preseason body fat percentage was regularly tested. Can you imagine returning from pregnancy and postpartum to line up next to your teammates while your stomach rolls are pinched and measured? It was barely tolerable pre-pregnancy. Who would choose that postpartum?
As a professional athlete/mother, you're not just going back to work. You're returning to a job that requires peak physical form and fitness. Meanwhile, you're navigating extreme hormone shifts and a body that now listens more to your baby's needs than your own.
The baby's need to nurse/feed, the poopy diapers, the piercing cries that make you physically hurt inside as a mother, those come without warning with no regard for your soccer schedule or your increasingly urgent need to sleep.
So what makes motherhood as a professional athlete possible?
Angel City FC makes conscious move to support mothers
When Angel City FC unveiled their mother's room for Claire Emslie, complete with a crib, highchair, recliner, changing table, etc., I was admittedly a little emotional. I'm not even the one benefiting from this addition, but it felt like a small nod to mothers everywhere, saying "you can do it," whatever "it" means to you.
The ability to be seconds away from your child at work relieves some of the mental stress of wondering how your baby is coping without you, the person who your baby literally sees as an extension of themselves for their first six months.
The support necessary to make the transition to motherhood goes well beyond a mother's room, but it's an important piece of the puzzle. It's a gesture that says to Claire, we want you here, we value you here, and your baby is a welcome and treasured addition to the ACFC family. That unspoken sentiment says a lot about the way in which ACFC at least intends to support their mothers and mothers to be.
If you asked me to define motherhood, I'd keep writing until my pen ran out of ink. But somewhere in that long list of what a mother is and what she is capable of is her innate ability to do the impossible.
Being a mother and a professional athlete is only possible because it's a task taken on by a mother. Mothers can do hard things, but that doesn't mean we want to do hard things. So thank you, Angel City FC, for helping relieve some of the impossible load.