Serena Williams isn’t the only one expecting a little athlete. Olympic gymnast Carly Patterson announced on her Instagram April 17 that she is 15 weeks along with her first child.
Revealing that she and her husband of four years, consultant Mark Caldwell, “have struggled to get pregnant for quite some time and were wondering if this would ever happen for us,” the 29-year-old champ gushed that “God has answered our prayers.”
Babies have been on Patterson’s mind for quite some time. The Dallas-based athlete — who nabbed all-around gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, along with silver medals for beam and the team competition — passed on the chance to attend last summer’s games in Brazil.
Though she was offered a spot as an ambassador for U.S.A. Gymnastics and a correspondent gig with the Today show, the risk that she could contract the Zika virus, known to cause miscarriages and microcephaly in babies, was too great.
Her sacrifice was well worth it. In her social media post, the motivational speaker, who also showed off photos of her ultrasound scans, raved that she and her husband “could not be more overjoyed for our little miracle and we cannot wait to start this journey of parenthood!”
