29-year-old Shawn Johnson's husband, football player Andrew East, tested positive for coronavirus just days after they found out she was pregnant. And, now she has tested positive.
The past year, expectant moms have battled their fears of the coronavirus while waiting for their baby to arrive. There have been some moms who battled the virus while being pregnant or contracted it after giving birth. One famous mom-of-one, who is pregnant with her second child, recently announced that she also tested positive for the virus.
Shawn Johnson, Olympic gymnast and gold medalist, and mom to 15-month-old daughter, Drew Hazel, announced on January 31 that she has COVID-19. The 29-year-old, who is married to NFL player Andrew East, said that she was "nervous" after the diagnosis.
The couple, who runs the East Family YouTube channel, had announced her pregnancy in a sweet video in January 2021. Now, they're facing this new challenge together, as strong couples do.
Johnson had shared her concerns on Instagram, as per Good Morning America. "1: I don't want to get my family sick. 2: I have asthma and have had it my entire life so this scares me a little extra. 3: had a very close family member fight for his life last month while battling Covid so it's a serious topic of concern/hits home in our household," she wrote.
She also said that she is "just exhausted" since she's been caring for her daughter, who battled RSV, a respiratory virus, for two weeks. "So far, I have a cough, terrible sore throat, and headache. Fatigue for sure but... that's pregnancy haha," Johnson said.
In the announcement video shared on the couple's YouTube channel, East spoke about testing positive for COVID-19 just days after finding out Johnson was pregnant. "We were in this time of celebration and we wanted to tell her parents and our friends, but then I ended up having to self-isolate," he said, calling it "not the ideal situation."
Now, his wife is also isolating. "Not looking for any kind of pitty [sic] party. Just a reminder to take care of yourself. Drink an extra water tonight and wash your hands," Johnson wrote.
The gymnast has been honest about her struggles with her body image in the past. She said that before the 2008 Olympics her diet was restricted to 700 calories per day and as a result, she "would pass out during practice or after," and never had a menstrual cycle, as per Good Morning America.
In 2009, when she became a participant on Dancing With the Stars, her body image issues became even worse. She also felt lost without gymnastics and was losing motivation.
"I had to deal with not being an elite athlete, not training 50 hours a week, eating more than 700 calories a day, which naturally would let my body to adjust and gain weight which was healthy at the time but I didn't know how to handle it," she said. She gained about 15 pounds back then. "When I went on Dancing With the Stars, and I had my period for the first time, and I had to deal with going through puberty on national television, I hit a very low spot," she said.
"I started taking weight loss pills. I started taking Ephedrine. I started taking Adderall. I started doing any and everything that I possibly could to lose the weight and to look like I did at the Olympics," she added. "Because in my mind, everybody praised me for what I did at the Olympics. They praised who I was as a human being when I was there and in my mind if I could look like that, not necessarily compete or do gymnastics, but if I could be that person again, then the world would say that I was enough and I was accepted."
She eventually returned to her sport but quit after realizing how unhappy she was. Instead, she focused on loving herself and leading a healthier life.
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