Beach volleyball star Kerri Walsh Jennings knows what girl power and team work can bring, considering she and Misty May-Treanor have paired to earn gold medals in three Olympics.
Walsh Jennings is excited to add another girl to her posse. Eight and half months pregnant, she is having a daughter, which she says will bring some levity to her house full of boys, including husband Casey and sons Joey, 3, and Sundance, 2.
Walsh Jennings calls this pregnancy “a roller coaster ride” since she had convinced herself she was having another boy, only to find it was actually a girl.
“Now I’m so happy, I just feel blessed and it feels like I’ll have to be more thoughtful with a girl,” she says, adding that she doesn’t worry about her boys because they have a great role model in their father. “I just don’t want to mess her up.”
The Walsh Jennings house was a frenzy early in the morning on Christmas Eve, when they found out together on TODAY that the baby was a girl. Her sons, upon hearing the news, “went from being boys and beating me up to kissing me and being, like, ‘Oh Mommy’ and ‘Oh sister,’” Walsh Jennings says. She anticipates more excitement and wonder when the baby comes home and the boys have to adjust to another girl presence in the house.
“We’re just trying to prep them because she’s going to be a little more delicate,” Walsh Jennings says.
Could the baby girl be as athletic as the rest of the family? If her boys are any indication, there’s a good shot she will be. “They’re coordinated, they’re cute and they have really feisty hearts and spirits,” Walsh Jennings says. About the baby on the way, “if the way she moves and responds to her brothers already is any indication, then the world is in for a treat with her.”
Despite the pregnancy, Walsh Jennings has not exactly been sitting around. She played volleyball just last week (after which, she says, “I walked like a cowboy for two days after that…but it was really fun to play!”).
She knows she needs to be careful and says of her pregnancy workout, “in general my rule of thumb is to listen to my body, and so far it’s all worked out.” She has kept up a strict fitness regimen involving pilates, a beach workout and lifting weights.
“And there’s a sand dune that I need to walk one more time before this girl comes out.”