Player Perspective: Postpartum Rugby

When I moved to DC in 2011 for graduate school and decided to try rugby in my late 20s, the Furies quickly became my family. The years I spent with the team were transformative for me as I learned a new sport, developed friendships, and learned a great deal about my own strength and the strength of community. I played for six seasons, as I was able between the inevitable injuries that happen to a new player who hasn’t quite figured out a full contact sport, and then took what I assumed would be a short break to finish my dissertation and apply to jobs.

The short break turned into years as my dissertation took longer than expected, I broke my foot playing volleyball, and then discovered I was pregnant with my daughter.

My pregnancy was uneventful until it wasn’t. I was hospitalized at 30 weeks with preeclampsia and at 32 weeks and 2 days I went in for a routine high risk screening and was again whisked off to the hospital. There I was told if I didn’t have my baby soon we would both die. I was put under general anesthesia for an emergency c-section a few hours later. She went to the NICU before I woke up and I was taken to recovery where I was not allowed to see her for 27 hours. The experience was, needless to say, traumatic. I had PTSD and postpartum depression that persisted long after my kid’s 29 day NICU stay. When she came home, my Furies family set up a meal train for me, and once or twice a week a Fury would come by with dinner, hold the baby, and listen to my story.

These visits were a lifeline for me. Besides making sure I subsisted on something other than peanut butter pretzels and cheese sticks between by midnight and 2 am pumping sessions, I felt seen and heard. After my daughter was born, I felt invisible and disconnected from my body. I felt like my pregnancy had all been a dream that somehow ended with abdominal surgery. I felt lost and alone, but the Furies kept me grounded. (Well, the Furies and the anti-depressants I finally started taking after a lot of urging from my doctor.)

By that summer my kid was growing and thriving and my depression was managed, but I was still feeling disconnected. I was still struggling with my relationship to my body and still felt like my sense of self was lost in my role as a mom. So, with the fall 15s season rapidly approaching, I ran to the store to get some new cleats (my feet grew 1.5 sizes  - pregnancy is wild, y’all), molded a new mouthguard, ordered new shorts to fit my postpartum body and made my way timidly to practice.

This isn’t a story of a triumphant return to sports right after giving birth. I am not the person running a marathon right after having a baby like it’s no big deal. Even nine months out from my kid’s birth I felt weak and unsure. My ankles still hurt from the swelling caused by the blood pressure medication that was saving my life at the end of my pregnancy but also making me very uncomfortable. My core muscles felt non-existent after my c-section and months of focusing all my attention on keeping me and my kid alive and not so much on working out. My first game back was terrifying. I spent the first half going into contact tentatively, thinking, “I almost died in childbirth, how can I get tackled right now?” But being on the field, being with my teammates (most of whom were new to me, but once a Fury always a Fury) I felt alive and whole in a way I hadn’t in almost a year. In returning to rugby, I’d figured out how to be a self and a mom all at once. By the second half of that game I was thinking, “I almost died in childbirth, you’re not going to tackle me!”

And then I got hurt again. I sprained my MCL in practice, because it turns out playing a full contact sport less than a year after having a baby and not doing much off-season training is hard on your body. I spent most of the season on the sideline, but I still felt very much, once again, a part of something bigger than myself. I spent the rest of the fall and winter in physical therapy, treating not just my knee, but all the other little things that had cropped up during and after pregnancy and I am going into the spring season stronger than the fall. To be honest, I probably would have kept ignoring all these little things, but rugby gave me a reason to prioritize myself again.

My return to rugby, like my first introduction to the sport 9 years ago, was not triumphant but it was transformative. I am finding my balance and my strength again. It’s hard to miss bedtime twice a week for practice, but I love putting on my cleats and running lineout drills. It’s hard to miss practice because my kid is sick or I can’t find childcare, but I love making up for the missed fitness by using her as a medicine ball for squats. Sometimes people say sexist things to me, about how I shouldn’t be playing rugby because I’m a mom now. But my kid is watching me challenge myself, she’s watching her mom be aggressive and physical and taking up space in the world, she’s watching her dad be supportive and cheering on her mom, and most importantly she’s seeing how a chosen family can be as strong and loving as the one you’re born into.

Tara Dunderdale
PTBAF