Portland Thorns keeper Bella Bixby is Oregon born and raised, and so is her 14-month old daughter, Ruby. She and so many other parents around the NWSL are redefining what it means to be a “soccer mom.”

When Bixby travelled with the team 10 weeks postpartum to continue her recovery program, Ruby came along. When she made her return to the pitch at the start of the season, Ruby was there in the stands. When she did a phone interview about motherhood, Ruby was on her hip.

Now, that’s a soccer mom.

In the first installment of Most Valuable Parent presented by Bobbie, Bixby opens up about being Ruby’s mom, returning to soccer after maternity leave, and which teammates she’s trusting to babysit.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has soccer prepared you for motherhood?

As professional athletes, the expectation is that we show up every day and give our 100%. We're critical of ourselves and really taught to identify areas where we could improve. I think that translates to motherhood because no, I can't take a day off. I think that every parent feels that way. I feel like soccer's prepared me to shoulder that a bit more. I was thinking about this, the hectic nature of being a professional athlete, you very much take it home with you, and being a parent is similar in that you’re always a parent, every hour of the day and night. I feel like I have transitioned to motherhood in a seamless way because I just feel — not competitiveness – this drive to be the best mom I can be, just like as a player, I’m going to be the best player I can be.

How do you define a win when it comes to motherhood?

I think it's different depending on the day. A lot of being a parent is giving 100% of what you have that day. So it may not be your top of the tank 100%, but if you have 75% that day, sometimes it's the win, just to give the 75% that you do have. I think that we can get really caught up in the hustle culture of being a parent. Everything is on social meda right now. People are documenting their lives, and it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. I think for me, a win in motherhood is: Was I present with my child today? Was I able to help them grow in whatever it is they’re developing right now?

The image of the stereotypical soccer mom often includes orange slices and mini vans. How are you redefining what it means to be a soccer mom?

I get to be a mom in a space where Ruby has so many aunties. She doesn’t realize that they’re role models for her yet, but she’s spending so much time in spaces where women are pushing themselves every day, chasing their dreams, and are being supported in ways that we’ve never seen before in women’s sports. I’m really proud to be a soccer mom.

NWSL parents are unique because they have a team of built-in aunties. What’s been the best part of introducing Ruby to the locker room?

They get to see how much she grows. I get to see Ruby every day, and so it's obvious to me that she's growing, but it's even more apparent when they haven't seen her for a few weeks and she comes on a road trip with us. It's been really cool to see a different side of my teammates and see them be these aunties. Some of them are very maternal. Some of them are the fun aunts. Some of them are like, “I've never interacted with a baby, but I love Ruby. I'm going to do my best.” Everyone does it in their own way.

Ruby is coming on road trips? What does that look like?

It’s a lot, yeah. (laughs) Ruby comes with us on most away trips. She’s starting to get to an age where we’re going to pick and choose, but when the season started, she was six months old. I was still nursing part of the time. She’s been coming on trips since actually last September when she was 10 weeks old.

Oh, wow. That sounds like a lot to juggle.

I know. I look back like, that was crazy. She came on our first road trip with the team. I was starting my return to play, so they were gone for two weeks. If I didn't go, I was gonna miss a really big chunk of my return to play plan. I came on that trip with my 10 week old baby, and now she's over a year old.

What does that look like?

It requires a lot of help. I would not be here without Elliot, my husband. He takes time off work to come. I can't do this without him. On these trips with Ruby and the day before the game, I get my own room. I get to sleep and get the best possible foundation for the game the next day. I'd say the hardest part of traveling with Ruby is the travel days. They're just that much harder. We spend a lot of time on the plane and being a parent is a very physically demanding job. But it’s also really fun at the same time because she gets to see all her aunties. Travel is really fun for my teammates, but for me, they're a bit stressful. Game days are so fun, she gets to come to the game. We take her out on the field before the match, and she plays with the soccer balls and kind of walks around the pitch. I feel like I get to do both. I'm not just a soccer player on game day. I get to have my daughter with me, so I'm very fortunate. After the game, win or lose, it's amazing to see her. I turn to her and she's going to be on the sideline by the end of the game, and that is lovely. It's great after losses because you just have this massive perspective shift about what's important. She's just happy to see me and she doesn't care if I lost a soccer game. It's really grounding in a lot of ways.

Which teammate are you trusting to babysit?

I’d say Sam Coffey is my go to auntie. She's so helpful. She, I think, wins, if I had to say. She goes beyond just being an auntie for Ruby. She’ll get me and Elliot coffee because she knows that our mornings are hectic. She plays with Ruby and is very animated and present, but she also helps me and Elliot feel a little bit more like people, which is really helpful. I’d also say Sam Hiatt, Jessie Fleming, and Hina Sugita are very engaged with her.

Ruby is a bit of a microinfluencer with Thorns fans. How do you keep her humble at such a young age?

Ruby is very popular. I feel like I should just put Ruby's mom on the back of my jersey now. I’m chopped liver now. Ruby is the star of the show. She doesn’t need to stay humble. She’s very cute and people tell her that all the time. As silly of a question as that is, I can’t wait for when she gets bigger and starts to understand things more. Mark Parsons was my coach for many years, and he had a young daughter that had her own bits with our supporters’ section. I think about Ruby having that one day, like driving the wave or doing something fun at the end of the game. That would be so fun. So keep her humble? Absolutely not. She deserves all the hype.

You did your axe portrait with Ruby, and honestly, it’s pretty badass. What does playing in a city like Portland with such a strong soccer culture and your hometown mean to you? And what it means being able to share those things with your daughter?

She's Portland, born and raised, and I think that no telling what my career will hold until I retire, but this is a part of her life. I think she'll continue to be a Portland soccer kid her whole life. It’s definitely in her blood. I felt obviously very connected and tied to the community before I had Ruby. There's almost this extra root that's grown in having her here.

If you had to pick a position on the pitch for Ruby based on her behavior right now, what would you pick and why?

I haven’t given this much thought. I think if she wanted to be a goalkeeper, I would definitely allow that. I’m not going to push her to be a goalkeeper if she doesn’t want to be. Ruby is really detail oriented in her day-to-day life, more so than other kids I’ve met her age. Maybe she’s an eight, a box-to-box midfielder.

The physical toll of giving birth is substantial to say the least. So is your soccer career. What did it take for you to feel ready to get back on the pitch?

All the credit to my medical staff. There haven’t been a lot of goalkeepers that have come back from pregnancy, so I felt like my medical staff did a really great job helping me navigate that. It was a first for them. We just took it day by day. It took a lot of work on the front end to get back. Being a goalkeeper requires so much core. Your hips feel different. Landing feels very different from before you had a child. If I had to be honest, I haven't really felt back to where I was pre pregnancy until maybe June of this year, which was a full year postpartum. That’s probably not what I would have wanted to hear when I was pregnant, but it just is what it is. I was competing at a high level in January and I was fit and in a good spot. Hormones rebalancing and your body, it just takes time and you can't really rush through that. I had a few really long term injuries, but nothing compared to coming back from pregnancy. It's just its own beast.

How was the mental and emotional transition back to the game after maternity leave?

My biggest fear when I was pregnant was that something would fundamentally change about my brain that would make me not want to be a professional athlete. That does happen to people, and I see how it happens. Is this going to change how I feel about soccer? Am I going to want to show up every day and compete for this? It didn’t. Nothing changed for me. I really craved that competition and I missed it while I was pregnant.

How have you made yourself proud over the last few months?

Sometimes I look at pictures of when I was really super pregnant and just immediately postpartum. I've come really far. I think that there's a lot of pressure on moms. There's a sort of bounce back culture. I'm saying this as a professional athlete, it was literally my job to get back into shape and it was so hard. I don't know how women that aren't being paid to get back into shape do it when you have a brand new baby at home and you're tired. It's hard to fuel yourself. I’m very proud that I didn’t get discouraged. I knew I had to stick to the plan, and that takes a lot of discipline. I'm very proud of myself for doing the very best I could and still being a present mom and doing it in a way that gave me the best chance of coming back healthy.

What is a soccer moment you can’t wait to show your daughter from your career?

I think the big one was when I had my first game back. We were at Utah, and she was there for that. She was exhausted because it was late, and she was handed to me as I was doing an interview. It was my first game back post maternity. We won the game. I got a shut out. It was like, “Okay, I did it, I made it back.”

What does making your daughter proud look like to you?

I think about this almost every day. It's funny that you ask that. I think that sometimes I can be really hypercritical of myself and struggling with the day-to-day of being a professional athlete, and a lot of the times I ask myself, “If Ruby was going through this, what would I tell her?” If I look back and tell her about these trials and tribulations that I’m going through, how could I respond to these in a way that she would be proud of me? The best thing I could do is keep pushing myself to be the best version of myself every day. This journey hasn't been without setbacks, and I've continued to push through them. I think she'd be proud of me if I continue to push myself and just find my ceiling.

Are there things about motherhood that I didn’t ask about that you want to talk about?

I’m a mom in the league that lives where my support is, and so many moms in the league don't have that. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and that saying is so right. So many women don’t have a village. I think about other women that have been and are doing it by themselves, and I’m just in awe. I have so much help, and I’m getting so much credit, but I have so much help. What I’m doing is hard, but she sees her grandparents regularly. I have a partner that travels with me. My soapbox moment is that we need to continue to lift up moms. Not everyone has the kind of support systems that I have in place. No one should have to choose between having a family and pursuing their careers. The subset of players that are moms, they’re superheroes. They have put in so much physically that you want players like that on your team. We shouldn’t be saying, “Oh, you had a baby.” It’s like, “Oh, you had a baby. You’re a badass. I want that kind of person on my team.”