Mom Finishes Boston Marathon 3 Months After Delivering Third Son

— -- Elizabeth Varga crossed the Boston Marathon finish line Monday exactly three months and one day after giving birth to her third son.

Right up until she began to run the prestigious race, the 37-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, did not even know if she would be able to cross the finish line.

“People told me not to do it and even at one point I told my friends I wasn’t doing it,” Varga told ABC News. “But I finally said, ‘I don’t even mind if I go to the expo and starting line and just walk five miles and drop out. I’d rather just be there.’”

Varga finished the 26.2 mile race in 4:16:02, according to the marathon’s official results. It was slower than the 3:33:29 she ran to qualify for Boston during a May 2015 marathon.

Just days after that qualifying marathon, Varga, who used IVF to conceive her first two sons, found out she was unexpectedly pregnant.

“We were shocked,” Varga said of herself and her husband, Roland. “I had complicated pregnancies with my previous two so in my head I was doing the calculations.”

“I thought I might deliver two months early again and then it’d be five months before the marathon,” she said. “I’d also been on bed rest so I knew I wouldn’t be able to train during pregnancy.”

Varga, who works full-time as a genetics counselor at a local hospital, was not able to run after the first two months of her pregnancy. She spent three weeks on bed rest before delivering her 8-pound, 6-ounce son, Nathan, on January 17, her 39th week of pregnancy.

Varga wanted to defer her Boston Marathon qualification, but expecting and postpartum moms are not allowed to defer the race.

“I’m glad I did it and I don’t have any regrets but ideally I would have liked to race next year,” she said.

Instead, Varga began to train on outdoor runs with her training buddy, Nathan, in a jogging stroller. If she ran inside on a treadmill, he slept near her.

Varga’s doctor knew both her medical history and her desire to race the Boston Marathon and gave her the okay. Also supporting her was her husband and their two older sons, a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old.

“I started walking within two or three days of giving birth and then my doctor at five weeks postpartum gave me permission to fully run and that’s when I started to ramp it up,” Varga said. “I started training slowly and realized I was more ready than I thought I’d be.”

On race day, Varga took advantage of the marathon’s accommodations for breastfeeding runners and pumped in the athlete’s village before marathon officials took her pump from the start line to the finish line.

During the race, she says she received tons of support from fellow runners and spectators who saw her shirt adorned with a photo of Nathan and the words, “My 3-month-old is cheering me on today.”

“So many people came up to me and said, ‘Your baby is so cute’ and ‘Go mama’ and even men were saying, ‘Wow. Three months postpartum is so impressive,’” said Varga, who was also cheered on in-person by her husband and Nathan. (Her other sons were at home with their grandmother.)

“The first half I was going fast and I knew I was and told myself it was okay because it was downhill,” she said. “Around mile 16 I just decided to walk if I felt like I needed to walk. It was pretty hot and I wanted to make sure that my nursing wasn’t negatively impacted and I stayed hydrated.”

Varga says every woman has their own journey after childbirth but, for her, she learned something powerful about herself.

“I think the message for me was you really can surprise yourself when you set a goal,” she said. “You can achieve more than you realize.”