Aussie quick Megan Schutt reveals why motherhood has changed her approach to cricket
Last year, Aussie bowler Megan Schutt stepped away from cricket while her prematurely born child fought for life in a neonatal intensive care unit in Adelaide. Her daughter’s now thriving. And the Ashes beckons.
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When Australian pace bowler Megan Schutt’s daughter Rylee was born three months premature in August last year, her little head was smaller than the fist Schutt makes around a cricket ball.
At the time, Schutt withdrew from the Aussie squad to be by wife Jess’s side as their baby, who weighed only 858g, fought for her life inside the neonatal intensive care unit at Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
Today, their wriggly five-month-old is a thriving, happy, hungry baby who loves to smile.
And Schutt is returning to the all-conquering Australian Women’s Cricket Team for the Ashes Series against England starting at Adelaide Oval on Thursday.
“Looking back at photos of when she was born, it’s so confronting, but we’re also reminded that we’ve been so lucky that she’s just commanded from the start, she’s taken charge and run her own race, and won it,” Schutt, 29, said.
Rylee – who was conceived through IVF using Schutt’s egg fertilised with donated sperm and implanted in Jess – is her mum’s new No. 1 fan.
She will be at Adelaide Oval to watch the Aussies play England in three T20s before the squad heads to Canberra for the Ashes Test.
Schutt’s preparation hasn’t been ideal in the lead-up to the Ashes – she and Jess both caught Covid over the Christmas break and the inswing bowler was only able to get out of isolation and back in the nets for a bowl last Tuesday.
“I’ve played cricket long enough that I’m not going to lose my skill set over a couple of weeks, and so I back that in, but my first run back, I thought I was going to die,” the world’s No. 4-ranked T20 bowler said.
“I feel fine now, I bowled again on Sunday and had a field and did some high-volume catching to get my hands hard again and feel pretty much fine.”
And motherhood is putting it all into perspective.
“I’m much more patient, I feel like I can put up with a lot more now and I feel like I’m a lot more in-tune than I would be … and I guess I’m a bit softer, I don’t feel the need to argue as much and it all puts life in perspective,” she said.
The multi-format Ashes Series will be played over seven matches from January 20-February 8.
THE BACKSTORY
AS the saying goes, nothing can really prepare you for parenthood.
For Australian fast bowler Megan Schutt, nothing could quite prepare her for how much her heart would open – how “softened” she would be – after the birth of her first child, Rylee.
The road to motherhood hasn’t been easy: from a tricky pregnancy for wife Jess to emergency hospitalisations and then Rylee’s premature birth, three months early and Rylee weighing only 858g.
Rylee was conceived through a process called reciprocal IVF whereby Schutt’s egg, fertilised with donated sperm sourced from the US was implanted in Jess.
Their first implantation earlier this year was successful and everything looked to be going well until a 12-week scan identified a low PAPP-A score, which meant a specific pregnancy-related hormone produced by the placenta was low.
They were told their baby would be on the small side.
By the 20-week scan, their baby was sitting on the 20th percentile for weight and length and their obstetrician decided to bring forward the next routine scan by four weeks.
But by then the baby had hardly grown.
Jess was immediately placed on calcium to help the baby’s bones and the couple was told that at only 24 weeks and two days gestation, their daughter could be born any day.
“We left super deflated, like we’d just been punched in the face, that we could have a baby any day that could potentially not survive, because 24 weeks is technically only just viable.
“At that time, I think she was only 500g in the womb and we were trying to wrap our heads around how everything had gone from OK to terrible really, really quickly.”
Jess was sent for weekly scans – quickly upgraded to biweekly – to monitor their baby’s growth, which remained alarmingly slow. Their hospital bags were packed.
At one point the couple was sent into the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, where Jess was told she wouldn’t be leaving until she’d given birth, only to be sent home again after three days.
But at 27 weeks, a patch of irregular baby kicks saw Jess readmitted.
After a week in hospital, one morning Schutt headed to cricket training at nearby Adelaide Oval.
“As soon as I finished and got to my car I got a call from Jess and she’s like: ‘There’s been a spike in her heart rate, they’re not happy with it, she might be under stress, they’re doing (an emergency caesarean) tonight’,” the 28-year-old recalls.
“I went straight to the hospital.”
Rylee Louise Schutt was born on August 17 at 10.09pm, at 28 weeks and six days, weighing 858g.
“It was a strange experience (in theatre); lots of people in the room, but all so calm and beautiful and she did a little cry when she came out, which we didn’t expect.”
Since birth, Rylee spent six weeks in the WCH, intubated for the first few hours of her life and then closely monitored by specialist nurses and doctors in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and then the Special Care Baby Unit.
Doctors have since diagnosed a rare condition – a velamentous cord insertion – which occurs in only 1 per cent of pregnancies. It meant the umbilical cord didn’t connect to the centre of the placenta, meaning Rylee wasn’t receiving the nutrients she needed.
But from the moment Rylee was “Earth-side”, she began to thrive, putting on weight, sometimes up to 80g in a night, and hitting all her milestones.
Six weeks after Rylee’s birth – and still four weeks shy of her original due date – the Schutts brought her home.
“We’ve been really lucky. We’ve witnessed a lot of different things being in NICU and SCBU … it can be a very confronting place, when that red light starts flashing and it’s life and death for whatever baby is in there.
“It’s been a rollercoaster, extremely emotionally tolling, you’re just kind of exhausted all the time.”
All the while, Schutt kept up cricket training, doing solo running and gym sessions for the first two weeks before transitioning back into full training with the SA Scorpions, of whom she is captain.
“It’s been hard,” she says. “I’ll admit, there have been days where it’s more tolling than others … some days it’s been hard to get up both physically and mentally to come in for training and then come back to the hospital and try and hold it all together.
“It’s put life into perspective. I was stressy early days about missing training, but at the end of the day it’s just cricket. It’s not so important when your daughter is fighting for her life in hospital each and every day.
“It really is a different kind of love … when she looks into your eyes and you feel that connection and that bond.”
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