Lovatos Expecting a Girl
Amanda and Michael Lovato are one of our sport’s relatively rare husband-and-wife professional triathlete couples. They recently shared some exciting news with us – Amanda is pregnant with their first child.
Slowtwitch: First of all – congratulations on the baby!
Amanda Lovato: Thank you! I feel like this is the year of the pregnant triathlete… {laughs}
ST: Right, there’s Pip Taylor; she just had her baby… and Sarah Haskins is pregnant…
Amanda: Bec Wassner had her baby in December. Kate Major is due around August, I think. Kim Loeffler is due in July; she and I are very very close.
ST: I didn’t realize Kim was pregnant, too.
Amanda: I love her; she’s probably one of my closest friends in triathlon. We started racing together in 1998 or 1999 as age groupers, and just continued our friendship as pros. Just a lovely, lovely person.
ST: When did you find out about your pregnancy? How did it all happen? {laughs}
Amanda: Well you see, I have a husband whose name is Michael… and we like each other very very much… {laughs}
In all seriousness, I had heart surgery November 5th of last year. We just didn’t know if we wanted to have kids. There was a time when I was 33 or 34 when I thought I was ready, but Michael wasn’t… and then we just never could find the right time. So I had this heart surgery, and Michael and I talked about it, and we just thought to ourselves, ‘there’s no better time than now.’ I’m 40 years old, and if we’re going to do this, we have to do it now.
Part of the reason I got the heart surgery is that one of my best friends is a cardiac nurse. She does these surgeries all the time and advised me that if you do decide to get pregnant, you’re going to be in SVT just about your whole pregnancy. Being pregnant is really hard on your body. I knew that I was having these issues in triathlon – but I knew I could get through it and it wasn’t deadly. The whole idea of getting heart surgery was daunting to me and I didn’t really want to do it. Then when my girlfriend approached me about it and said ‘if you do want to get pregnant, [the surgery] is something you want to do’. It sort of pushed me that way, and we decided that [a baby] really is something we want.
After the heart surgery, Michael and I just decided to start trying. It happened after 3 months. I knew when I was only about two and a half weeks pregnant – doing 800 meter repeats on the track. I was breathing really hard; it just felt really labored. I had taken a scoop of Pre-Race, and I’d had some coffee… and I was running 20 seconds per half mile slower than I usually do. My running partner – who is a guy – looked at me and said, “Amanda, is there any way that you’re pregnant?” And I hadn’t told him any of our plans… I was shocked when he asked! {laughs} I thought to myself that I really might be pregnant. I just didn’t have any other symptoms other than that I was really slow. It took a pregnancy test – day one was negative, day two was negative, and day three was finally positive.
ST: So your heart condition was SVT?
Amanda: Yeah, I’ve been having it in races. The first time I had it just in everyday life was probably 2001. Every year after that it was just getting progressively worse. 2009 was probably the worst year – I was getting it in every single race. My doctors were telling me to get the surgery then… I just didn’t want to do it.
ST: Did they just go in and do an ablation?
Amanda: Yeah, and it was very simple. They found it really quickly. I haven’t had any issues since then, so I’d say it was 100% successful.
ST: Back to the news at hand, we know that it’s a girl, right?
Amanda: We know it’s a girl!
ST: Do you have a name picked out, or a list of names?
Amanda: No… you know, a name is so important. It’s not something we’re taking lightly. We have a whole bunch of name books, and we’re picking out the ones we like. We don’t know what we want to name her just yet.
ST: What is the due date?
Amanda: October 24th.
ST: So… does Michael still plan on racing Hawaii? Or does that…
Amanda: Oh, no…! {laughs} He’s not racing Kona this year. He’s actually going to be commentating with Greg Welch and Matt Lieto. Last year was his last Kona; this year he’s looking into other avenues. Commentating and being in front of the camera, he’s just so good at it.
He’s still racing elsewhere, for sure. He respects Ironman Hawaii so much, and he really did put everything he had out there last year. You just know it’s time to not go back anymore and race as a pro. He’s just in a different spot right now… we’re expecting a baby. And honestly, he’s too busy right now to train like he needs to train for that race. He has ten million things on his plate; somehow he’s managing to do them all well {laughs}… but he can’t give Kona the respectful training that he needs to give it. He’s still happy to be there and commentate, and be a part of it. For him, it’s time to walk away from Kona as an athlete.
ST: I’ve noticed that you both keep quite busy on the side.
Amanda: Michael and I both do some coaching, and I’ve had my real estate license for seven years. In the past, I’ve mostly done referrals to my business partner, but this year I’m doing everything on my own. The market is great right now, but I'm also working very hard, and things are going quite well. While I miss the training that I used to do, real estate offers me the chance to avoid getting down when I really miss triathlon. It keeps me busy and I love the competitiveness of fighting for a listing or negotiating a deal. And it certainly helps us pay the bills.
ST: What – triathlon isn’t a great way to make money? {laughs}
Amanda: I have to say, Michael and I have done extremely well. I can’t say that we’re absolutely the best athletes out there, but we’ve managed to make a living doing this. I think it’s because we’ve represented our sponsors well. Not to toot our own horn, but we just try to be good people and do the right thing. We’ve been in the sport a long time, and we’ve done okay for ourselves.
ST: Do you have a plan for racing post-baby?
Amanda: {laughs} I’m just taking it day-by-day right now. I really do miss racing. I can’t say that I have loved the feeling of being pregnant. I’m very honest about who I am and how I feel. I haven’t had any horrible morning sickness or anything, but I’ve really struggled with how my body has been changing… and there’s nothing I can do about it! {laughs} Nobody told me that my butt was going to grow like this!
Once we have the baby, I definitely look forward to getting back in to a routine, but I’m far from setting my 2014 schedule or anything like that.
ST: What do you say to athletic women who maybe aren’t sure about getting pregnant – or waiting until later in life?
Amanda: There’s a lot of things about being pregnant that I think are important to talk about. A lot of women are afraid to wait. When I walked in to my doctor and told her I was thinking about getting pregnant at the age of 40, I was very self-conscious. But the average age of a woman in Boulder to be a first-time mom is 40. When people say 40 is the new 30, I believe it. I’ll be sitting around in the waiting room [at the doctor] with a bunch of other 38 to 43 year-old women.
ST: Are you planning on having more than one?
Amanda: Well… maybe… I don’t know. {laughs} We’ve just got to take it day-by-day. Let’s just see how this first one goes. I was never the type of girl growing up that played with dolls or wanted children. But then I met Michael, and he was someone who really wanted kids. And – because he makes my life better, and we are so good together – I embraced the idea much more.
I’ve had a lot of girlfriends who trained 7 days a week during pregnancy. I thought that I would be the same – that I’d do some sort of exercise every day. But just because my girlfriends did that, definitely doesn’t mean that I can do that! My baby is only 14 weeks old, but she definitely has control. Sometimes I’m sleeping 12 hours at night, and then another two or three during the day. Now I’m actually on two weeks of bed rest. I think it’s important to not worry about what everyone else is doing and do what’s best for you.
ST: Anything else you’d like to add?
Amanda: I sent you a picture of our cake. We had a bunch of friends over last weekend – some of them didn’t even know I was pregnant. We decided to color the inside of the cake for the gender of the baby. If we cut it open and it was blue on the inside, we were having a boy. If it was pink, we were having a girl. Sure enough, we cut the cake and it was pink! That’s our fun little story.
Start the discussion at slowtwitch.northend.network