Former USWNT star Carli Lloyd pregnant with her first child

Former U.S. women’s national soccer team member Carli Lloyd is pregnant with her first child, she announced Wednesday.

The 41-year-old Lloyd said she is due in October and detailed the difficult process of trying to conceive a child with her husband, Brian Hollins, in Women’s Health Magazine.

She retired from playing professional soccer in 2021 at the age of 39 and went through multiple rounds of in-vitro fertilization treatments, which started in April 2023.

“I felt all the emotions during my career — stress, worry, fear, anxiety — but I’d never felt all the emotions that IVF brought on. I felt completely out of control. It’s an indescribable roller coaster unless you go through it,” Lloyd told Women’s Health Magazine.

Lloyd said she felt "embarrassed, ashamed, and afraid to tell people that I was going through IVF to now wanting to share my story to help others."

“In times of struggle, we see what we are made of. We grow. We learn. And most important, we have more appreciation for the things we do have in life," she wrote. “I want to show other women that it’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to feel broken and to feel hopeless, but to never give up and to keep going.”

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain. My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me," she added.

Lloyd now works for Fox Sports as an analyst after a decorated soccer career in which she helped the USWNT win two World Cups and two Olympic gold medals.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USWNT legend Carli Lloyd pregnant with her first child