Um, okay.
The triple gold medalist and her also-ran husband (sorry, Casey, but what have you done for us lately?) revealed this on the Today Show on Monday. They said they had been trying for #3 shortly before the Olympics but didn’t think it would happen so quickly. While it might have made sense to wait on this until after the Olympics, Kerri and Casey freely admit they didn’t have the restraint. That’s some candor!
While my photo caption above is of course in jest, Walsh Jennings herself claims to actually see visual signs of her bun-in-the-oven from photos taken during the Olympic tournament. It’s not exactly Malaysian shooter Nur Sulyani Mohamad Taibi, whom you might remember making a ton of headlines, but pregnant Olympians don’t happen too often.
And evidently teammate Misty May-Treanor called it. Kerri relates that she was feeling sluggish, “moody and touchy” and that she was four days late. Misty’s response? “You’re probably pregnant.” And still she won gold! I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be pregnant, but women who have had children at all are relative rarities on the medal stand. Walsh Jennings might in fact be the first mom-to-be to have ever taken some hardware.
Of course what this makes me think of is the FIVB Stare Jablonki tournament and the AVP Cincinnati tournament that she played while even pregnant-er. I attributed the relative lack of success for the Walsh Jennings/Branagh partnership to the newness of their team and their relatively similar physical makeup and playing styles. Well…it now seems something else was at play!
It would seem they just found out (I would freaking hope they only just found out), as Walsh Jennings told Matt Lauer on Today that she couldn’t wait to tell people. She has miscarried before, but evidently she was entirely too early in the pregnancy to risk any damage to the fetus by playing in the Olympics, according to an NBC doctor. (Well, how about in the two or three weeks that followed? Probably still nothing, but the world doesn’t stop when the Olympics do)
Nothing has changed as far as Rio — Walsh Jennings still wants to play for a fourth gold medal in Brazil. Obviously her 2012 season is done (there was only one more tournament anyway), but it’ll be fascinating to see how much she plays in 2013. The baby is due April 9, and the season starts in May. She actually might not miss that much time, knowing how insanely dedicated (-slash-possessed) this woman is.
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