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Olympic gold medalist Carli Lloyd is pregnant, but it wasn’t easy. She shares her IVF struggles on Instagram.

The World Cup champion and Delran native shared the details of her emotional fertility journey with Women's Health Magazine.

Carli Lloyd and her now-husband Brian Holllins at the 25th annual Glamour Women of the Year Awards in 2015 in New York. The retired U.S. women's soccer star and her husband are expecting their first child in October. The 41-year-old Lloyd announced her pregnancy on Instagram on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. She has been married to Brian Hollins for seven years. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Carli Lloyd and her now-husband Brian Holllins at the 25th annual Glamour Women of the Year Awards in 2015 in New York. The retired U.S. women's soccer star and her husband are expecting their first child in October. The 41-year-old Lloyd announced her pregnancy on Instagram on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. She has been married to Brian Hollins for seven years. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)Read moreEvan Agostini / Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Two-time Olympic gold medalist Carli Lloyd announced on Instagram Wednesday that she is pregnant with her first child.

“It has been a roller coaster of a journey to get to this point,” the Delran native wrote on the social media platform in all caps. “We are beyond excited to be parents. I couldn’t have gotten through this without my amazing husband, Brian. He truly kept me going.”

The post features a photo of a onesie with the words, “Worth every single shot,” printed in calligraphy. Next to it is a chalkboard that reads: “We’ve hoped and we’ve prayed and now we are excited to say: Our little miracle is on the way. October 2024.″

The 41-year-old FIFA Women’s World Cup Champion shared her emotional fertility journey with Women’s Health magazine in a story, also published Wednesday. Lloyd retired from professional soccer in 2021 at 39 and waited a year to try to become pregnant. She was healthy. She took care of herself. The journey would be easy, she thought.

“I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant,” Lloyd told Women’s Health writer Amanda Lucci for the in-depth piece. “And so it began. The casual whatever happens, happens turned into disappointment month after month. I was starting to feel like this was a race against the clock — my 40-year-old biological clock.”

Lloyd and her husband, Brian Hollins, went through three rounds of in vitro fertilization. The egg retrieval was tough, but the wait to find out if the embryos were viable and genetically healthy was excruciating. The embryos still had to be implanted into Lloyd’s uterus. There was no guarantee they would take. Lloyd’s insurance didn’t cover the process.

“I felt all the emotions during my career — stress, worry, fear, anxiety — but I’d never felt all the emotions that IVF brought on. I felt completely out of control,” Lloyd shared.

In January, while on a golf trip in Phoenix, Lloyd got the call she’d been waiting for from her doctor — the IVF worked. She was pregnant.

“I want to show other women that it’s OK to struggle,” Lloyd said. “It’s OK to feel broken and to feel hopeless, but to never give up and to keep going.”