I thought I'd posted this yesterday but I don't see it. My apologies if it did end up floating around here somewhere.
Hi. :) I'm new here although I've been popping in and out for a couple of months to read various discussions. I am a 28 year-old female who has been swimming competitively for most of her life. I'm doing low-mileage masters now to complement my running and lifting activities and quite enjoy it.
Last week my husband and I found out that we are expecting our first child. Now that it's sunk in, I realize that my routines will have to change a bit. I think my swim practices should be easy to modify. However, I had just signed up for a local summer competition league when we found out. There are six SCY meets total with short events (longest being IM & 100 fr), and the first is this Thursday.
Based on reading I've done online and a call to my health insurance Nurse Help line, it appears that I probably should not do dive starts from the deck even as early as I am now at 5 weeks. Has anyone else heard of this or heard differently? I'm going to call my ob/gyn doctor tomorrow to verify but there really seems to be a limited understanding in the medical community of competitive swimming.
I'm especially curious about this because we're trying to keep the pregnancy a secret for a couple of months to make sure it sticks and avoid news spreading too soon to my company. In-water starts will certainly raise eyebrows so I might need to pull out of the competition league and just stick with practices if I can't dive.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!
Parents
Former Member
Thanks for all of your responses. I feel better about this having heard from people who know the sport and have been in this situation themselves or witnessed it firsthand.
I mentioned I'd spoken to a Help Line nurse yesterday who said she didn't think it was a good idea. Today I called my ob/gyn's office and the nurse there didn't seem one bit concerned about racing or diving at all, even past the first trimester. That's a pretty broad spectrum of medical advice in addition to all of the varying info I've been reading.
My husband leaves the final decision up to me but he thinks we shouldn't risk it since there's a little bit of miscarriage history in my family (my sister miscarried in the first trimester of her first pregnancy last year but her second pregnancy was a success). I'm torn - I think it's probably fine this early but I don't see a need to push it just for a bunch of local meets.
Starting in the water would raise a lot of eyebrows at the meets and get people asking before we're ready to tell so I think I'm going to ask for a refund on the competition league, explain things to my coach, and just do my normal practices instead.
Thanks again for the congrats. We are thrilled. :)
Thanks for all of your responses. I feel better about this having heard from people who know the sport and have been in this situation themselves or witnessed it firsthand.
I mentioned I'd spoken to a Help Line nurse yesterday who said she didn't think it was a good idea. Today I called my ob/gyn's office and the nurse there didn't seem one bit concerned about racing or diving at all, even past the first trimester. That's a pretty broad spectrum of medical advice in addition to all of the varying info I've been reading.
My husband leaves the final decision up to me but he thinks we shouldn't risk it since there's a little bit of miscarriage history in my family (my sister miscarried in the first trimester of her first pregnancy last year but her second pregnancy was a success). I'm torn - I think it's probably fine this early but I don't see a need to push it just for a bunch of local meets.
Starting in the water would raise a lot of eyebrows at the meets and get people asking before we're ready to tell so I think I'm going to ask for a refund on the competition league, explain things to my coach, and just do my normal practices instead.
Thanks again for the congrats. We are thrilled. :)
