{"id":482361,"date":"2026-06-08T14:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/482361\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T14:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:17:08","slug":"scotlands-claire-emslie-on-motherhood-world-cup-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/482361\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland&#8217;s Claire Emslie on motherhood &#038; World Cup dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With Jamie arriving ahead of schedule, Emslie says she and her husband were not fully prepared for parenthood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;No, but we&#8217;re glad it happened like that because I didn&#8217;t have to think about it too much,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It was just, &#8216;right, here we go&#8217;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t until we got to the hospital and they said we&#8217;d be going to surgery in an hour that the panic set in. But it didn&#8217;t last long because within an hour he was out and we were mum and dad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We were expecting him on 27 December. I was just thinking, &#8216;please don&#8217;t come on Christmas&#8217;. Then he came two weeks early and we were buzzing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite her rapid return to competitive action, Emslie says her recovery required patience after giving birth by Caesarean section.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Three weeks later, I started with pelvic floor physio,&#8221; she said. &#8220;My main recovery was getting my abs back together. Everything else was intact and it was just getting the abs back together and allowing my body time to recover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;After three weeks I started mobility work and slowly progressed from there. The support I had at Angel City was brilliant and it shows what&#8217;s possible with that support and the willingness to get back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having returned to the Scotland squad, Emslie&#8217;s focus is now firmly on helping her country reach next year&#8217;s tournament in Brazil.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t get better,&#8221; she said. &#8220;As a footballer, playing for Scotland is the best thing. Going to a World Cup doesn&#8217;t get better than that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;And to do it in Brazil, the footballing country, would be incredible.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Jamie arriving ahead of schedule, Emslie says she and her husband were not fully prepared for parenthood.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-482361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}