Katrina Gorry breastfed her daughter Harper until she was one. This doesn’t sound unusual at all, until considering that she had to time feeds between football games and training, and then get physical on the field.
“That was definitely the most challenging thing,” says the Matildas midfielder. “And any kind of contact to the breast was super painful. I’d just come home with bruises everywhere.”
Matildas midfielder Katrina Gorry with her daughter Harper.Credit: Kyoko Kurihara/Football Australia
For Gorry, that was the biggest learning curve, which is saying something given how much she has navigated in her 30 years.
“I never thought I’d enjoy breastfeeding, but I loved it,” she says. “It was a connection I’d never felt before and, for us, it really worked to help us have good hours of sleep at night and things like that.
“But I did feel like she was sucking everything out of me at one point. I just felt so, so depleted. It was an amazing experience; at the same time, since I’ve stopped breastfeeding, I’ve felt a bit more myself.”
Gorry made the decision during the COVID-19 pandemic to become a solo parent, having IVF while playing in Norway and giving birth on August 16, 2021 – three days before her 29th birthday.
Externally, at least, early parenthood – especially if going it alone – appears incompatible with being a professional footballer. But, more and more, high-profile women are having babies and then returning.
Perspective also counts for a lot, and Gorry had endured far more shaky turbulence before Harper, now 23 months, came along. There were injuries and oscillating form – from being named 2014 Asian player of the year to struggling for game time. But the disordered eating with which she struggled throughout had rendered recent years “very dark times”.
And if that was the case, then now she is basking in the light. In the form of her life, both on and off the proverbial pitch.
“Before I had Harper I had an eating disorder and went through a really, really rough time for a couple of years, just with the way I looked at food and looked at my body,” she says. “Going through pregnancy and labour, I did really appreciate my body in a whole new way.
“I’ve never really looked back on those times. I knew they were very dark times. But now when I look at it, I just can’t see myself ever really being that person because I have found a whole new appreciation for my body and what it can do.
“It’s given me the best memories in the world. And giving life is something pretty cool.”
This is where breastfeeding comes in. As she kept her daughter healthy, the weight “literally fell off”. But she felt more herself once she stopped. Her muscles, despite their period of inactivity, were somehow stronger – and not just stronger in comparison to her postpartum self, but even more so than before she fell pregnant.
“I don’t know if it just gets to a point where your body almost resets completely after you have a baby, but since the day I started running after I’d had her I just felt like I could run forever.”
She is not wrong. The Matildas’ head of sports science, Jack Sharkey, says Gorry is setting new PBs in physical testing, and puts it partly down to the enforced break and gradual, careful reconditioning.
“I think that’s down to being able to switch off, have a break and, and go again,” Sharkey says. “I’m not saying you have to have a [baby] at that time, but it reiterates the importance of giving these players the break that they deserve and need.”
The team’s physician , Dr Brandi Cole, agrees pregnancy and childbirth can not only help a footballer become more in tune with their body but also build up a more balanced muscular make-up. “It’s not starting from scratch by any means,” she says. “Because what makes them professional athletes is, you know, their genetics and talent. So they’ve still got all that, but sometimes it’s cheaper to knock a house down and build it again.”
As many new mothers will understand, it is not always smooth sailing. Every person’s experience will differ from the next, and that is also the case for footballers. Alex Morgan and Julie Ertz, two-time World Cup winners with the United States, have done it and returned in time to play this tournament but have spoken publicly about the challenges.
“How am I gonna sleep the night before important games? How am I going to breastfeed at half-time because my boobs are hurting?” Morgan, 34, worried while she was pregnant in 2020.
Ertz, 31, is only 11 months postpartum but says, while it hasn’t been easy, the “new perspective” provided by pregnancy has given her a new drive and love for her sport.
Of course, it helps if there is support. In 2020, FIFA rewrote the regulations around maternity leave, announcing measures that will enforce fines and transfer bans on clubs who discriminate against players during pregnancy.
It also fell in line with the International Labour Organisation’s minimum 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, with at least eight weeks after birth, at two-thirds of their contracted salary. The news was positive but also met with concern that these minimum standards have been set too low.
But club and national team set-ups have more often than not welcomed families in the same way Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson has opened the doors to Harper and Tameka Yallop’s daughter Harley, who she had with wife and former New Zealand international Kirsty Yallop in 2020.
“No one really knew what to expect the first camp that we had both kids in, but was really welcoming,” Yallop says. “It’s definitely changed the whole environment, and possibly even given us a little more of an little edge in the high performance because we are able to switch off and also emotionally feel something different than just 100 per cent football.”
Gorry, who is now engaged, certainly feels that. She is a certain starter in Australia’s midfield and settled back with her Swedish club Vittsjö GIK, in the knowledge her daughter is well looked after. Harper goes to daycare twice a week to give her some downtime and is with a nanny while she trains – and understands more Swedish than her mum.
“We always thought maybe we would have to retire to start a family,” Gorry says. “But now a lot of people are starting to think about it. And clubs have the support there, too, so the mothers can go and feel safe and comfortable with their baby looked after while they train.
“My club has been absolutely amazing from the start. She comes into the change room and dances around with the girls, and then I can go and do my training knowing she’s safe and happy, and come off to her.“
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