Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor Gets Real About Parenting 2 Kids With Special Needs While Competing in the Olympics: 'It's Chaotic'
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When Team USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, pilots her bobsleigh down Cortino’s mile-long ice track at the Winter Olympics later this week, she’ll be just a month out from a “horrific” crash that she was lucky to walk away from.
As an elite athlete who has been competing — and medaling — at the Olympics since 2010, she’s of course experienced plenty of accidents. But now, as a mom of two young boys, they tend to hit a bit differently.
“I have become more risk-averse,” says the five-time Olympian, speaking on Zoom from her apartment in Cortino as sons Nico, 5, and Noah, 3, climb and jump on her. “It’s a lot bigger picture to try and figure things out when you’re the primary caregiver.”
Her husband Nic Taylor, a conditioning coach and chiropractor for NBA players (and fellow bobsledder who has been Elana’s coach and an Olympic alternate), is often traveling for his work. And while she’s thrilled to travel with their nanny, who is also a bobsledder and has an innate understanding of her needs and challenges, Elana is still the boys’ rock—and trampoline.
“It’s chaotic,” she admits. “I get plenty of snuggles, but I don’t get much ‘me time.’”
She adds, laughing, “Doing this with one kid was crazy enough. Doing this with two is just insane. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She says that it’s especially true since Nico and Noah have so much “boy energy” to expend. “That’s why they’re jumping on me right now.”
And it’s another reason she’s not too keen on getting injured.
“You start to think about things like, what is this going to be like in 10 years?” shares Elana, one of the oldest Olympians at this year’s Winter Games. “Is my body going be able to run around with them and do all the things that I want to do with them?”
Parenting challenges came right away for Elana and Nic, as their first baby’s early days were defined by medical issues: He was relegated to the NICU as a newborn and soon diagnosed with Down’s syndrome and hearing loss.
“We had tried for a year to have Nico, so we didn’t do any of the genetic testing beforehand,” she says. “For us, it didn’t matter. We were going to keep him regardless.”
Parenting Through Early Challenges
The athlete says Nico’s stay in the NICU (after her C-section and just before the pandemic shutdown, no less) was the toughest part.
“You think you’re going to take your baby home the next day after delivery,” she says, but instead of that “fairytale ending,” she and Nic wound up having to leave him behind, “on air and feeding tubes.” Once they were past having to see him in such critical condition, they were ready for anything, including Down’s syndrome.
“He was my son, and I had the chance to fall in love with him first,” she says. “You hear these stories about people who have the diagnosis in utero, and they’re shocked, they’re worried. I didn’t have that.”
Now, when it comes to better understanding Nico’s issues, Meyers Taylor leans on Gigi’s Playhouse, a national organization devoted to supporting families in the Down’s syndrome community. The moms it’s connected her with, she says, “I could literally call on for anything,” from practical advice about pediatricians and physical therapists to emotional support.
“Everybody talks about a mother’s instinct, but this kind of stuff does not come naturally to anybody,” she says about catering to a child’s special needs.
That’s especially true when there’s more than one diagnosis to contend with — which also includes bilateral hearing loss not only for Nico, but for his little brother Noah, too. It left their parents worried about how they would communicate with their sons.
Learning Patience and Balance
Figuring it all out became “a quest,” Elana says. She and Nic learned American Sign Language, which they now primarily use at home. And they also made the decision for each boy to get a cochlear implant — an electronic device that sends sound past the damaged part of the ear straight to the cochlear, or hearing, nerve.
“They’re controversial in the Deaf community,” she acknowledges, as some view the implants as a threat to their culture and identity. But by having them, combined with ASL, she says, “We really felt that it gives them the best opportunity to live within the hearing world and have spoken language but also live within the Deaf community.”
Nico got his implant at 21 months and Noah at seven months, and their mom says watching them go through the surgical process was a struggle. “Anytime you’re putting your kid under surgery and trusting somebody to cut into their head, like, it’s a big deal,” she says. When Noah’s had to be redone this past summer after the implant on his left side broke, it brought further stress.
“It was the worst possible summer to be doing surgeries, because it’s when I was trying to prepare for the Olympics,” she says. “But at the end of the day, it’s more important that he has those cochlear implants that are working than it is for me to go to the Olympics, as strange as that might sound. That’s going to impact the rest of his life. And me going to another Olympics? Yeah, it’s a huge goal of mine. But it doesn’t come before my kids.”
The kids, she explains, have brought her some surprising gifts — including patience, focus, and surrender.
“I’ve never been the best at just letting things go, or forgiving myself for bad performances,” she says. “But the end of the day, with kids, you have to.”
All that growth has allowed Elana to keep excelling at what she adores: driving her bobsled.
“When you’re really in tune with your sled, it feels like you’re flying,” she says. “I love driving a sled so much. And I love that moment at the Olympics when you’re standing at the starting line and you’re about to either live your wildest dreams or your worst sporting nightmare. Anything can happen in that moment.”
When she gets to be in her sled, “It’s a good day,” she says, adding, “That’s my ‘me time’.”