Just six months ago, five-time Paralympic medalist Mallory Weggemann was quietly considering retirement . But it wasn't because the competitive swimmer stopped loving what she did; the new mom felt “stuck" and forced to choose between being a parent and career athlete. "It felt like the expectation was that I would silo those two identities—athlete and mother—and break them apart," Weggemann tells Glamour .
“I didn't feel like there was a path forward that showed how this could work. We're still learning; more women are competing through motherhood and athletics, but we still don't have an abundance of representation showing us how." Fortunately, if Weggemann knows anything, it's overcoming adversity—as well as her way around a pool.
Weggemann didn't retire. In fact, the 35-year-old qualified for her fourth Paralympics games —and did so just fifteen months after giving birth to her daughter Charlotte. “I have a whole new appreciation for what my body is capable of,” she says of the momentous feat.
“Watching everything my body did through that season—going through IVF, pregnancy, competing at 26 weeks pregnant at Nationals, training as much as I could throughout, postpartum, and all that comes with healing following a C-section —I look back and I see all the ways that my body served me over the past two and a half years and it's remarkable.” For anyone familiar with Weggemann's story, this perseverance comes as no surprise. After a routine medical proce.