There were times last fall when Julie Ertz would stare lovingly at Madden, the months-old baby boy resting in her arms, and wonder how the heck any new mom could ever return to work.

There were moments, emotional moments on the couch with little Madden and her husband, Zach, when conversations would get real and raw, and meander from parenthood to life to professional athlete desires, and the support required to balance all three.

And there were days, weeks, long stretches throughout the 18 months Ertz spent away from the U.S. women’s national team when, as she said Tuesday, all of this was “not easy.”

But all along, lingering in the back of her uber-competitive brain, was the itch. She’d feel it while watching Zach’s NFL games. She’d recall the joy that soccer has given her. “The love for the game,” Ertz said, “is hard to step away from.”

So, throughout the Arizona winter, she pushed through lifting sessions and soccer drills. She sought advice from fellow player-moms — and trained with one, Kealia Watt. She plotted a return to the National Women’s Soccer League, which has unlocked her 2023 World Cup ambitions. She returned to the USWNT this week for the first time since the 2021 Olympics, and since giving birth last August. She said Tuesday that she feels “good,” “great” and “really good.”

But now comes the hard part — or, rather, the latest of many hard parts.

Ertz is here, in the USWNT’s last camp before the World Cup roster is named, because of what she once was.

Now, though, in 2023, as a 30-year-old mother, she is a different person.

And whereas most of society’s avenues would accept and embrace a person’s postpartum evolution, soccer sometimes struggles with that.

Ertz’s stunning return to the sport prompted discourse often framed by speculation about how “close to 100%” she could be.

“We know the quality of the player,” head coach Vlatko Andonovski said last week. “And if she comes anywhere near her best, she will certainly help us win a World Cup.”

Ertz didn’t follow the discourse, but she feels the analogous feeling when she steps on the field.

“I kinda know where my body was before,” she said Tuesday. In journeying back from pregnancy, and making the decision to return, she thought about making sure she “was strong enough to be able to feel like I could be myself.”

She also knows, of course, that “my past successes with the team, individually and collectively ... I'm sure that's why I am back.” She is getting this chance to snatch a World Cup roster spot, and perhaps even reclaim her place in the starting 11, because she spent most of her 20s as a stalwart center back and then a dominant midfield destroyer. She is back because she fills a need and, at her best, could elevate the USWNT to a three-peat this summer Down Under.

All of this creates pressure, pressure that piles on top of the daily responsibilities (and joys) that come with motherhood, pressure that can feel burdensome.

But “pressure is a privilege,” now and always, Ertz said Tuesday. She is handling it by giving herself grace, and by reframing her return.

“I don't even wanna go back and be the player that I was,” she said. “Because I wanna be better.”

She has been deep in conversation with Andonovski in recent weeks, analyzing video clips and talking tactics, getting up to speed with what she’s missed in meetings and on the training field while away.

She knows that “the game continuously adapts, your opponents constantly get better,” so she wants to improve as well.

She has not been guaranteed a place on the plane to New Zealand this summer, and does not yet have an NWSL club, but she has vowed to approach this challenge and this journey with “an attitude of gratitude.” And “already,” she said, it’s “been really rewarding.”