Six-time Olympic gold medallist Allyson Felix gave birth to her daughter Camryn via emergency C-section last month and despite the premature birth, both mother and child were 'doing fine', US Track and Field said on Thursday.
Medical complications required the baby to be born at 32 weeks and she will need additional time in the neonatal intensive care unit before she can come home.
"I'm trying to be open to what God has in store for me and my family," Felix wrote in a message posted to the team's website.
"I still feel nervous and vulnerable. But I also feel brave and excited. Every day I sit with my daughter in the NICU and watch her fight. Every day she gets stronger and more beautiful."
News of the birth came as a surprise to her fans since the Los Angeles native had not previously said she was pregnant.
The 33-year-old sprinter, the most decorated American woman in track and field history, was set to announce her pregnancy before the emergency C-section on Nov. 28 derailed those plans.
Felix said she planned to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and would run with a new sense of purpose.
"I'm not just running to win the most medals anymore," she said in a first-person article published by ESPN on Thursday.
"If I come back and I'm just not the same, if I can't make a fifth Olympic team, I'm gonna know that I fought, that I was determined, and that I gave it my absolute all.
"And if it doesn't end up the way I imagined in my head, it'll be OK. I just have to go for it, because that's just simply who we are now."
Tokyo keeps budget at $12.6 billion, more work needed
The 2020 Summer Olympics budget remains unchanged at $12.6 billion after increases in some areas were offset by reductions in others, with Games organisers acknowledging on Friday that more work was needed to curb spending.
Organisers have been working to cut expenses since a study warned they could balloon to four times estimates made during the bidding process, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants Tokyo to set a good example for future host cities.
However, the third version of the budget announced on Friday was equal to the projection issued last year, after organisers had managed to reduce it from the $14 billion outlay unveiled two years ago.
"There is still a lot of work to be done to control expenditure," Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto said in a statement.
"But with the cooperation of the IOC, Tokyo 2020 will continue to make best efforts to maximize revenues, contain costs and keep its budget within 600 billion yen ($5.6 billion)," he said, referring to the organising committee's portion of the overall budget.
Organisers said requirements were becoming clearer with less than 600 days to go until the event, prompting them to bump up estimates for transportation and Games operations by $100 million apiece.
However, those increases were offset by a reduction in a contingencies reserve and through other savings, with organisers also highlighting robust domestic sponsor revenues, up $100 million from last year to $3 billion.
Of the overall budget, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government accounts for $5.6 billion and the central government $1.4 billion, unchanged from last year.
