tell us where your journey started oh goodness you know so for me I grew up as lifelong swimmer right I'd been in competitive service since the age of seven and when I was 18 I was getting epidural injections for back pain and unfortunately one of them didn't go as planned and I was left paralyzed and you know January is the 15-year anniversary and I say anniversary because we choose to celebrate every year we have since year one and I think there's this notion that when adversity strikes our adversities are all defining they are the thing that will Define every aspect of our life moving forward and for me for so long Society told me that my paralysis was going to be my defining factor and you know Society met me with the statistics after my injury of you'll never graduate college you'll never have a full-time career you'll never fall in love get married have a family like statistically speaking what kind of my expectations were in this life and now we're coming up on 15 years and I'm living this life that's the very life that I was told for so long somebody in my situation will never have wow did you ever think that you would swim again at the being paralyzed oh gosh no I don't think I thought there's so many things I thought I'd never do again after my injury fortunately for me though I found the water two and a half months after my paralysis and a half months two and a half months after [Applause] [Laughter] wow made my way back in and for me the black line was the very thing that kind of connected to me to my past and it led me forward and little did I know I'd go on to become a three-time paralympian and five-time paralympic medalist I made and congratulations because you're expecting your first child oh my God how excited are you we are so excited it was a long journey to get here we went through a pretty drawn out IVF journey and so to get to this point and to be able to now celebrate being 22 weeks pregnant with our first child and know what this journey will be you've been so open about your husband you and your husband's experience with infertility it takes a lot of courage to do that but I mean I am so in eye of you like I was like this is to be unamazing so congratulations to you thank you everybody turns around in every way go ahead and I and I think in that Jennifer one of the things too is infertility is so very seldomly talked about in society but yet one in eight couples go through it and when you go through infertility it affects men and women equally but most men don't talk about it and my husband has been so courageous and so vulnerable in talking about the fact that it exists as male infertility on his side and so we chose to go out and talk about it and change that stigma and especially as a female and in your profession you're kind of told you got to pick one or the other and balancing as a as a woman in your career how do you do both let alone as a professional female athlete I think that was so important for us to show that we as as individuals have the power to live in the simultaneous two things can be true at the same time and we can navigate through and continue to go out and keep fighting for those dreams I think you're such a superhero Shiro let me correct myself okay you're going to compete in December while pregnant I am yes I am going to I am going to race at Nationals I'll be 26 weeks pregnant I would say race is potentially a loose term yeah we'll see I kind of joked with my husband a little bit I was like you know I think the five paralympic medals do a good job of proving like I don't have anything to prove anymore yeah so we at least have that part covered but I think it'll be so special to do what I love most with little one and at the same time too I think there's an element of sport has the power to transcend right has the power to make a statement and showcase what's possible and so to be able to do that and do that with little one and also understand that in that very Act of diving off a starting block with my wheelchair by my side I as a woman with a disability in creating a path forward for other women who are told there's not a place for us yes you are don't forget to subscribe to the Jennifer Hudson Show YouTube channel and turn on that notification Bell so you're the first to see our latest videos