
Many moms lament how long it takes to "get their bodies back" after giving birth, and most of us find it more of a distant wish than a doable reality. Who knew that building a human practically from scratch and then extracting it from your body would take its toll?
However, one mama has turned that notion on its head completely. After winning her 12th World Championship gold medal in the mixed-gender 4x400m relay, runner Allyson Felix has beaten the gold medal count record she co-held with Usain Bolt. But the real kicker? She did it just 10 months after giving birth to a premature baby via emergency c-section.
There are not enough superlatives to describe how freaking badass this is.
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During her pregnancy, Felix developed severe preeclampsia (also known as toxemia), a condition marked by excessively high blood pressure and a posing a host of dangers for both mom and baby. According to NBC Sports, Felix ended up delivering her daughter Camryn via c-section on November 28, 2018, at 32 weeks. Born at 3 pounds, 7 ounces, Camryn then spent 29 days in the NICU.
So not only did this 33-year-old Olympic champion recover from a complicated pregnancy and birth and go through the difficulties of having a baby in intensive care, she got herself in good enough shape to break a world record in her sport less than a year later. Unreal.
All the standing ovations for this mama.
On a related note, Felix was part of a group of female athletes who went to battle over their sponsorship negotiations with Nike after becoming pregnant. Felix wrote in a NY Times op-ed in May that the company had wanted to pay her less after she became pregnant. She wrote:
Despite all my victories, Nike wanted to pay me 70 percent less than before. If that's what they think I'm worth now, I accept that.
What I'm not willing to accept is the enduring status quo around maternity. I asked Nike to contractually guarantee that I wouldn't be punished if I didn't perform at my best in the months surrounding childbirth. I wanted to set a new standard. If I, one of Nike's most widely marketed athletes, couldn't secure these protections, who could?
Nike declined. We've been at a standstill ever since.
Felix ended up dropping her Nike deal and signed with Athleta in July. Nike's loss, Athleta's gain. After fierce backlash over the issue, Nike announced in August that it had changed its policy so that female athletes would not "adversely impacted financially for pregnancy" for 18 months—six months longer than its previous policy.
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While Felix's performance 10 months after giving birth is remarkable, it also shouldn't be the expected standard. Felix said she "felt pressure to return to form as soon as possible" after her daughter was born, despite the complications in her pregnancy and birth.
Just the act of growing and delivering a baby is a physical feat that deserves praise and admiration. A study on the limits human endurance found that pregnancy demands the same energy levels as an ultramarathon. Seriously.
The truth is that all moms are amazing, whether or not they are smashing gold medal records 10 months after giving birth. And that undeniable truth is what makes Allyson Felix breaking her and Usain Bolt's record all the more impressive.



A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva


An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.