“It's also going to be a lot of emotions, to meet someone that grew up in my body”

“From an athlete’s perspective, of course, my schedule changed a lot, even though I was able, I think, at the beginning to keep up with the athlete's rhythm,” says Nze Minko of how she is feeling physically. While many players continue with handball until around the three-month mark, for medical reasons, Nze Minko had to stop earlier.  

“I had to basically stop handball right away after I found out that I was pregnant. Or at least stop contact, so it's been a long time since I played handball — of course, handball without contact, but then it's not really handball, right? So, I had to adapt physically from the very beginning of my pregnancy, but I'm still doing sport. I'm still doing cardio. I'm still going to the gym. 

“I'm not doing the same type of exercises that I was doing, let's say before, when it was more performance related. Now, I'm more having a focus on keeping my strength muscles and also making my body adapt to the baby and mostly to the baby weight. So, I'm basically doing everything to lose as like, less muscle as I can, and also prepare my body for the birth, so I'm having more precise exercises about the pelvic floor or like, the strength on my back, because of course the belly is growing so it's more weight on the front of my body. 

“Let's say that it's a little less handball related, but it's connected, of course, to doing everything to keep the maximum strength and come back as good as possible, and also focusing on what's needed for the pregnancy.”

“Listen to the pregnant woman body, rather than the athlete performance side of me”

The ability for pregnant handball athletes to train at the highest level has been evolving. Not so long ago, Heidi Løke’s rapid return to the court after giving birth was the stuff of unique legend. 

Now, with maternity leave policies more commonly in place at top clubs and with national teams, it is more usual, or at least more publicly visible, for players to have this kind of support — to be able to keep training as suits them with a view of returning to action as soon as possible after giving birth. 

Nze Minko says her aim is to continue with adapted training, but she is ready to adjust if needed, as she did with on-court training.  

“Still three weeks ago, I was running,” says Nze Minko. “I could really do a lot of things without feeling any pain. The only struggle I had — but every pregnant woman goes through this at some point — it's more about being tired. Sometimes not really having the energy to train or to push as much as I would like to. So it's more, you know, about adapting daily, but of course the plan is to do sport as much as I can and as long as I can during this pregnancy. 

“Right now, I feel that I can kind of push until the end because I feel good. I have no pain and also mentally, I really enjoy doing sports. It's really nice. I'm saying this because I know that some other pregnant friends are just not feeling good doing sport, either physically or either mentally, and I think it's really important in this situation to be able to listen to yourself, even though it's hard as an athlete to sometimes be a little smart and be like, OK, today I feel tired, so I'm not going to train. 

“This is kind of new, because we usually don't have a choice, let's say, so yes, for a little time, it has been a little battle in my brain, to listen to the pregnant woman body, rather than the athlete performance side of me.”

“Will I ever be able to jump like this again? To run that fast? To get my cardio back?”

The way Nze Minko speaks about her pregnancy makes it clear there are almost two separate but parallel paths being walked simultaneously — the journey of pregnancy itself and that of eventually returning to the court. 

“This part hasn't been easy, because in one way, of course I've seen more and more players doing it, so I have this feeling that I can also do it myself — especially in my club where I saw a couple of very high-level athletes going into pregnancy and then come back,” says Nze Minko, but “it doesn't guarantee you 100 per cent that you can come back at your best level — that you can come back in the timing that you wish. 

“Somehow, I have a lot of confidence, and also I want to believe that the best will happen — the best-case scenario. But also, to be honest, when I see the girls now playing, I'm also like, wow, will I ever be able to jump like this again? To run that fast? To get my cardio back? To get my shape back? 

“So, I'm also having a lot of doubts and a lot of questions popping into my head, especially because, even though many handball players had kids and came back, I still feel that I'm one of the oldest doing it. I have many examples of players that had kids, you know, around like 28, 30, but I'm a little older, so I don't have so many examples of girls my age who actually made it and came back. 

“Nora Mørk. She’s a very good one. I'm actually thinking a lot about her and her journey, because she's born in 1991 like me. She had her kid last year and she's the closest I can think about when I think about having a kid age 33, 34, returning to a Champions League club, maybe a national team. But it's not many of us, so maybe I will — I hope — I can be the one giving hope to other players later.”

Nze Minko has many teammates at both Györ and in the national team, both current and former, who have given birth then made their way back to the court. Based on the experience of other female handball players she has spoken to, what does Nze Minko expect for her own experience after childbirth? 

“I'm trying to not to set, right now, too many rules and goals,” she says. “I also want to be gentle with myself. I made a choice to have a family, and I know that it might take a while to come back to the highest level because my focus is also going to be on something else, and this I have to accept. So, I want to be kind of ready for everything. 

“Maybe it's going to be faster than I expect. Maybe it's going to take more time. Also, I read a thousand things — for some players, it took three years. For some, they were coming back that fast. They didn't expect that they would feel that great from the beginning.” 

“It's a very complex sport and I think that I can also maybe develop other skills”

Nze Minko does not know quite how her return to action might go, but she believes being ready to adapt is key — both on the court and off it. 

“The way I see it, and the way I've always seen it actually, in handball, in general, even when I wasn’t pregnant, is that I will have to adapt. I think what I’m going to try to do is to improve on also other things, rather than putting everything on my physique. It's a very complex sport and I think that I can also maybe develop other skills that are not only requiring having an amazing cardio or an amazing jump or amazing speed on everything.

“I'm also lucky enough to play in a club and in a team where there are so many talented players. So, I think I can also find a way to take time to build myself up — physically at least — to the top level, but still managing to bring something extra to the team. 

“I think a lot about Nora — maybe it’s not directly connected to her pregnancy, but she had so many injuries over the years. Of course, sometimes physically she couldn't do the same things because she had to adapt, and this she did all the time. When she was starting to shoot a little less, she started to play a little more with the line and she was still always brilliant, just in a different way. And this is also something that I would love to do myself, because I think it's the best when a player gets older, their body changes, but she can still adapt to a level and to the game by developing other skills, so that's how I see things and it takes away some of the physical pressure I feel.” 

“Something huge is coming and I can only prepare for it”

That is the physical side of things. Naturally, becoming a mother is about so much more than that and pregnancy itself comes with a lot of changes that impact emotions. 

“I have my ups and downs. I feel, of course, still very grateful and happy,” says Nze Minko. “Grateful because I could do it in the timing that I wanted to. I really wanted to get pregnant at the end of the last season and it happened. And I just know how lucky I am somehow, because I know that so many people struggle to have kids and I could almost like choose my timing, and that's something that I'm not taking for granted.

“I'm over seven months pregnant now, but it just somehow sometimes feels still so unreal. It's really hard to realise that my life is going to change totally.  

“It's also going to be a lot of emotions, to meet someone that grew up in my body, take care about someone like I've never done before, to have this huge responsibility to have someone's life in your hands and to share it with my boyfriend. And so, this is way too big to, I think, really realise it right now, even though I have a baby moving in my belly, so it's very concrete.

“But I just feel that something huge is coming and I can only prepare for it and trying to feel as good as I can mentally, daily, to welcome this new member of my family with love and be ready to give everything I have. A lot of things, I guess, are going to come a little naturally when it happens. 

“It's also a good experience, getting closer to myself and learning to know who I am also without handball. That's a great opportunity. I also really feel that I’m going to approach handball in a different way mentally when I come back, and I'm really looking forward somehow to do the same job but maybe with another mindset.” 

photos © Uros Hocevar / kolektiff (main); Jozo Cabraja / kolektiff (in-text)