Connecting Bumps with a Bump: Brittany Ayers on foiling while pregnant, from Foiling Magazine

This feature first appeared in Foiling Magazine issue 28 (June 2026) as "Connecting Bumps with a Bump", in the magazine's State of Play section. Words Brittany Ayers, photos Jeanne des Valliéres. Republished with the magazine's kind permission.

Foiling while pregnant might not be a topic that comes with a great degree of nuance in public conversations. Here, Brittany Ayers states the case that the real variable that matters isn't actually the pregnancy – it's competency. Figuring out what's actually safe, and why that's nobody's call but your own…

AWSI is my favorite dopamine hit of the year. Every year. The week leading up to the annual wind and water sports tradeshow is filled chasing downwind laps with my favorite humans on the planet. People who feel the same inexplicable pull toward water and speed and flight. Then suddenly it's over, the winds of shoulder season are fading, and I am back in regular life wondering how that happened. AWSI isn't just a trade show, and this sport is more than a sport. It's a community, a family, and a way of life. That week is like an annual family reunion.

Ten days later I found myself at the Hatchery. The wind was strong enough for stellar conditions, but not strong enough to clear the masses from the chaotic corridor. Every winger, kiter, windsurf legend, and DW ripper still lingering in the Gorge converged on that tiny stretch of water. A floating traffic intersection with no stop signs and everyone operating with a completely different rulebook. I was on a 90L Mako Frank board with the newest AXIS 1020 Tempo. This quiver is not for the faint of heart or anyone with opinions about going slowly. While hauling down a bump, a winger cut into my downwind line close enough that I bailed. Straight up bailed. Off the board, into the water. Dignity optional.

Vibe check: this was not normal for me. I flagged him down, had a perfectly civil conversation about downwind lines, he rode off, and then I burst into tears.

Vibe check number two: wildly not normal for me. Typical “Lit-tany” (Brittany who loves to ride in the most lit conditions) is bulletproof. She doesn't hesitate. She doesn't bail from wingers. She definitely does not cry in the middle of the river after a calm chat about right-of-way. I chalked it up to the fading winds, the post-AWSI crash, not enough sleep, food, or recovery. Classic overextended athlete brain refusing to acknowledge its own signals.

A week goes by. I take a pregnancy test on a Friday morning.

Well. That explains it. I’m pregnant.

The first wave of emotion isn’t just joy, fear, or excitement. It is this wild recalibration. My entire internal operating system updated, and I didn't agree to the terms. All those "off" days suddenly snap into focus. The irrational crying at the Hatchery? My body was already running a completely different program. The hypersensitivity, the exhaustion, the feeling that my finely tuned risk assessment algorithms had somehow gone haywire – not a vibe problem. Biology.

The athletic identity piece hit differently than I expected. I built my life around chasing conditions, being available for sessions, staying sharp on gear that doesn't permit hesitation. The idea of recalibrating all of that felt, in the first few days, a little like grief. And that's okay to say out loud. Genuine excitement and genuine mourning can be held in the same hands.

Fast forward six months and I am over seven months pregnant shooting in Baja California Sur in La Ventana. I launch from Baja Joe's on a 4.3m parawing and a 50L Ozone Rise board in shit wind, 50 pounds heavier than I was at AWSI. I am sinking to my chest in the water on the board, willing this thing into the air through pure stubbornness while my center of gravity quietly files a formal complaint. Fingers crossed I can make it to south beach and the wind picks up.

Finally I clear the wind shadow, head towards the photographer, and the wind does indeed start to pick up. Really pick up. As I hold on for dear life, the parawing tries to rip out of my hands, the sun drops toward the horizon and casts full glare across the water so I can barely see where I'm going. I can't find Jeanne des Valliéres, the photographer. The disorganized waves are building, and something in my chest starts to tighten.

Pregnancy feels a lot like that. Conditions are bigger than you expected, the light is wrong, you can't see where you are going and everything is moving faster than your ability to process. The love is enormous and real. It doesn't make the overwhelm any less overwhelming. You are just out there, holding on, trying to make good decisions with incomplete information.

Standing on that board in those conditions, 7.5 months pregnant, I ask myself the question, “Why am I doing this? Should I actually be doing this?” I come off foil, sit down on my board, stop, and breathe. I ask myself the real question, “Can I do this safely? Can I make controlled, calculated movements where I am actually in charge of what happens?”

If the answer is no – if this becomes something I can't manage – I throw in the towel. Full stop. No ego, no photoshoot. Nothing is worth it. The answer, after I got quiet enough to hear it, was, “Yes, I can do this safely. Carefully. On my terms.”

That evening, over dinner, AXIS Foils’ Evan Mavridoglou mentioned it was gusting up to 40 knots. 40 knots on a 4.3m parawing with swell, in the third trimester. It wasn't the pregnancy that made it hard. It was legitimately, objectively hard. Conditions that would have been a handful for anyone. Pregnancy does not make you fragile.

I am not the only one navigating this. Kalia Aguera from GoFoil was paddling Maliko runs at five months pregnant. Not a casual downwinder. Emma Clamp of Armstrong was towing into bombs in New Zealand at five months pregnant. These are not weekend warriors making reckless decisions. These are elite athletes applying years of body knowledge to a new set of variables and making informed calls. Other elite pregnant foiling athletes decided to stop foiling earlier. They all deserve to be seen. Not whispered about. I stopped foiling at eight months. Not because someone told me to, but because it felt right.

So here is my actual opinion, for whoever needs it:

The variable that matters is not pregnancy. It’s competency. Don't try to learn something new. Don't push into new conditions. If you have spent years building water intelligence, you know how to read conditions, assess risk, and listen to your body. That doesn't disappear. Adjust your gear. Go up in volume. Widen your margins. Shorten your sessions. Run your risk analysis every single time and be honest about the answer. And when it stops feeling right, you'll know. Trust that.

If you're part of this community watching someone navigate this, resist the instinct to project fragility onto a body doing something extraordinary. The pregnant woman showing up at your launch with a foil under her arm is not ignoring risk. She is managing it with self-awareness. Give the pregnant ladies their downwind lines. Give them your respect.

We joke that my daughter is already a foiler in training logging water hours in utero. Future foil grom, getting the vibes from the inside. She already knows what it feels like to fly.

And for the record, the stoke is completely, stubbornly intact.

The AXIS gear in this story

• AXIS Frank Mako 90L, from the Frank Mako range
• AXIS Tempo 1020, from the Tempo range

Read more from Foiling Magazine, and find issue 28 online.