Amanda Beard Expecting First Child – A Boy!
 Courtesy Sacha Brown |
She’s won seven Olympic medals and flaunted her toned figure in magazines from Playboy to PEOPLE’s 2008 World’s Most Beautiful issue. Now Amanda Beard has two new reasons to celebrate: She just got hitched – and is nearly 5 ½-months pregnant with her first baby, the swimmer tells PEOPLE exclusively.
“It was absolutely perfect,” Amanda, 27, says of her May 1st wedding to photographer Sacha Brown, 34, on Wakatobi, an archipelago in the Banda Sea off southeastern Indonesia. “It was stress-free, and super low-key.” The couple said “I do” in a brief sunset ceremony on a private beach at their resort. Presiding over the nuptials was a local elder, and the only witnesses were villagers from the area – none of whom spoke English.
“I’ve always said, ‘I want to get married barefoot on the sand,’” says Amanda. And she did. But following local custom, both bride and groom adhered to Muslim tradition and covered much of their bodies for the ceremony. She wore a black, long-sleeved tunic, a sarong and a white veil, while Sacha also wore a sarong (“A long, manly sarong,” Amanda jokes. “He felt he looked like Aladdin!”), a hat – and a sword.
After the ceremony they exchanged hand-written vows over a romantic steak dinner and a two-tiered chocolate cake with chocolate chips and white frosting. Also on the menu: non-alcoholic Shirley Temples – a must for Amanda, who is expecting a boy in September.
“I’m starting to look pregnant,” says the newlywed, who cops to major ice cream and Popsicle cravings and, despite exercise, is feeling “a little softer.” She plans to get back in the water about half a year after she gives birth, and is aiming to compete in the 2012 Olympics.
Amanda, who met Sacha on a photo shoot and got engaged on Christmas Day, competed in four straight Olympic Games, starting when she was 14 in 1996 through last summer’s Olympics in Beijing.
So could a water birth be in her future? Not if Amanda has anything to say about it. “I’ve heard wonderful things about it,” she says. “But I want to do it the old-fashioned way – in a hospital, with all the technology!”
Source: PEOPLE
– Alexis Chiu
- Posted on May 12, 09 at 1:00PM
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- 7 Comments
May 12th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
it’s funny to me that she would refer to hospital births as “old fashioned.”
May 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Pretty sure she was making a joke…
May 12th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
A waterbirth sounds much more comfortable to me than giving birth lying on your back in a hospital bed, especially since they can’t perform an episiotomy.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
That was the joke yall.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
A big congrats to her! Ive met her a few times back when I was a swimmer and she was always very nice. I wonder how long before she has the little one in the pool?
May 13th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Kate- Not all hospital births are like that. Some hospitals allow you to give birth in other positions, such as squatting, sitting on a chair, on your hands and knees, or even standing up. Some hospitals even, from what I’ve read, allow you to labor in a tub of water, or even have a waterbirth.
Also, not all doctors routinely do Episotmies. Please don’t generalize.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I also think it’s funny that something that has only been mainstreem for about two generations is “old fashioned” lol. Luckily hospitals are becoming more “old fashioned” and allowing for more traditional and women friendly birthing techniques.