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My gold-medal moment: Powering through Disney while pregnant

From MSNBC.com news anchor and reporter, Dara BrownFor my son Hayden's fourth birthday, my husband and I decided to take him to Disney World. At the time, I was seven months pregnant with our second child. Since I couldn’t fly much closer to my due date, we stopped at my in-laws in Florida, then headed to Disney for three days. Hayden was so excited, and of course we wanted him to have the time

From MSNBC.com news anchor and reporter, Dara BrownFor my son Hayden's fourth birthday, my husband and I decided to take him to Disney World. At the time, I was seven months pregnant with our second child. Since I couldn’t fly much closer to my due date, we stopped at my in-laws in Florida, then headed to Disney for three days. Hayden was so excited, and of course we wanted him to have the time of his life. We hopped the bus to the Magic Kingdom for day one, lunched with Tigger and Pooh and waited for every ride that allowed 42-inch riders. By noon on the second day, I saw a cart selling Mickey Croc’s and immediately traded in my way-too-tight sneakers for a pair as I powered through the Animal Kingdom. But day three was the real challenge. My son was a trouper, my husband a champ for taking him on the roller coasters, and I was just in tow. While we queued up for our final bus ride back to the hotel, I stopped to brace myself on the rails. A woman waiting ahead of us turned to me and said, “Honey, are you actually trying to walk that baby out of you?”I mustered a smile and realized, yes, it was finally time to slow down. What seemed like a three-day marathon for me was no Olympian feat, but certainly a trial run for my current endurance track as a small-business-owning, full-time-working, mother of two. Related stories: