No Limits: Navigating Competition, Pregnancy, and Purpose

When Life Reshuffles the Plan

When I discovered I was pregnant just weeks before the AIDA Pool World Championship 2025, I faced a choice many female athletes know all too well: step back from competition or push forward at any cost. I chose a third path, one rooted in self-trust, responsibility, and long-term vision.

The Unexpected Journey Begins

My plan for 2025 was clear: set new depth records in freediving, compete at the Pool World Championships, and then start trying for a baby. Life, as it often does, reshuffled the order.

While preparing for the pool championship, I trained intensely, regularly completing distances of over 200 meters on a single breath. Yet something felt off. I listened to my intuition, and it proved right. A pregnancy test confirmed what my body had been signalling.

Just days before the competition began, I made a conscious, empowered decision to withdraw. Not as a retreat, but as an act of responsibility, clarity, and respect for both my body and the life growing inside me.

Defying Expectations, Dive by Dive

A few weeks earlier, at the CMAS Depth World Cup Philippines 2025 in May, I completed what many would call impossible: a 105-meter deep dive with monofin, on a single breath. At the time, I had no idea I was already pregnant.

The numbers alone don’t tell the full story. The real challenge was in the mindset. Determined to correct a previous mistake, I descended into demanding conditions, rain streaking the surface, darkness swallowing everything below 70 meters.

The dive itself felt almost surreal. I was perfectly focused, yet completely at ease, moving through the water as if time had slowed. After receiving a red card on day one of the competition, while diving to −107 meters, I told myself: this is your last chance this year, don’t let it slip. Every stroke, every fin kick counted. Only later did I learn I had been pregnant during that dive. What initially felt like a personal victory grew into something more, a quiet, profound reminder of the strength, resilience, and discernment of women. Pregnancy doesn’t automatically mark the end of an athletic journey; sometimes, it simply reframes it, revealing what we’re truly capable of.

The Mental Game: Acceptance Over Perfection

Perhaps the most important lesson from this journey isn’t about training or performance, but honesty. Even as I continued to train while maintaining technique and general physical shape, the toughest challenge wasn’t physical.

Honestly, the hardest part wasn’t pausing depth diving, it was learning to accept the changes in my body.

In a world where female athletes are often pressured to “bounce back” immediately or hide their struggles, I wanted to be truthful. About first-trimester nausea. About my clothes not fitting. About the mental recalibration required to embrace a body and a life that felt unfamiliar.

Supported, Not Sidelined

Through it all, one person has been a constant: my husband, Lance. His support highlights something often overlooked in conversations about athlete mothers, the power of a partner who doesn’t just tolerate ambition, but actively celebrates and champions it.

His active presence underscores an essential truth: navigating the intersection of motherhood and athletics doesn’t have to be a solitary journey. I’ve received an incredible amount of love, support, and care from my husband. To the point that It made me wonder, how do women do this on their own? I acknowledge both my privilege and the reality that not every woman has this kind of support. That awareness only deepens my gratitude and my hope for a world where no woman feels she is required to face these challenges alone.

The Bigger Picture: Redefining What’s Possible

I’m sharing my story because it challenges the binary choice society often presents to female athletes: career or family, competition or motherhood, athletic identity or maternal identity. My journey demonstrates that these aren’t opposing forces, they can coexist as integrated aspects of a full life.

By maintaining training throughout pregnancy, albeit modified and carefully monitored, I’m showing that pregnancy doesn’t mean complete cessation of athletic activity. 

Records, competitions, and family milestones don’t need to happen all at once to belong to the same life.

Most powerfully, as I look ahead, I know my purpose. My biggest dream and motivation remains to return to competition and inspire other female athletes.

The Journey Continues

As I progress through my pregnancy in Bali, still actively training, and preparing for both motherhood and an eventual return to competitive freediving, I’m writing a new narrative. One where “athlete” and “mother” aren’t conflicting identities, but complementary ones. Where physical changes are acknowledged honestly, rather than hidden. Where ambition doesn’t end with conception.

The Inspiration I Hope to Provide

Every woman who has ever felt torn between athletic ambitions and motherhood may recognise something in this story. Every mother who has quietly wondered whether pregnancy changed her relationship with sport may find reassurance in knowing it doesn’t have to. And every young athlete questioning whether having children means letting go of competitive dreams deserves to know there’s more than one way forward.

This journey isn’t about chasing goals at all costs. It’s about listening to the body, to intuition, and to the seasons of life as they unfold. It’s shown me that being an athlete and being a mother aren’t mutually exclusive and they can coexist beautifully.

My story is still being written. And with each lap I swim, each dive I complete, and each reflection I share, I hope to leave space for more understanding, more choice, and more possibility, for myself, and for the athletes and mothers who come after me.

To Every Woman Athlete Out There

If you’re reading this and wondering whether you can have both: the answer is yes. It won’t look exactly like you planned. The timeline might shift. Your body will change in ways that challenge you more mentally than physically. You’ll need support, understanding, and a willingness to adapt.

But you don’t have to choose between the person you are and the mother you want to become. You don’t have to abandon your athletic identity at the door of motherhood. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone except yourself.

I’m still the same competitive freediver who chases depth records. I’m still the same athlete who trains with dedication and competes with determination. And soon, I’ll also be a mother. These identities don’t compete, they complement.

My message is simple. You can be an athlete. You can be a mother. You can be both. And by refusing to accept that these must be separate journeys, you can inspire countless others.

The choice isn’t between your athletic dreams and motherhood. The choice is whether you’ll let others define your limits or whether you’ll define them yourself.

I’ve made my choice. Now it’s your turn.