Congrats to USWNT star Alex Morgan and LA Galaxy midfielder Servando Carrasco, who announced yesterday they are expecting their first child in April.
The timing is remarkable. Morgan is due ten months after leading the US Women to a fourth World Cup (That’s some way to celebrate!) and three months before the opening of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Morgan reportedly is planning on being a part of the Olympic team, but just the question of whether she would play highlights one of the unique issues female athletes face: How and when to have children. At 30, Morgan is in her athletic prime, and at a point where many women have started or have decided to start families. She and Carrasco met as first-year students at the University of California-Berkeley in 2007 and have been married five years, so wanting to start a family seems, well, not so surprising.
The inherent unfairness is that while the decision has little affect on Carrasco’s athletic career, it could (will) profoundly affect Morgan’s.
For example, Serena Williams took a year off competitive tennis when she had a child. Her return, at age 37, was somewhat fraught. She made the finals in three major tournaments but didn’t win them, and she has dropped in the rankings to 9th in the world. On the other hand, Kerry Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant when she won her third beach volleyball gold medal at the 2010 Olympics in London and Scottish golfer Catriona Matthew won the British Open less than three months after delivering her second daughter.
Closer to home, one-time USWNT player Sydney Leroux rejoined the Orlando Pride in September, three months after she gave birth. (That’s about the same time Morgan stepped away from, citing a nagging knee injury sustained in the World Cup.)
Some things transcend sport. Family lives are a prime case.
But, even so, here’s hoping we see Morgan on the pitch in Tokyo, and maybe Carrasco in the stands with their healthy baby in his arms.