Byline: Bryce Miller, The San Diego Union-Tribune, (TNS)

SAN DIEGO — The process would break most — mentally and emotionally if not financially. For some, becoming parents demands more than seems possible. For some, hunting for the joy of bringing a life into the world is a road littered with pain and sorrow.

Long odds. Demoralizing setbacks. Staggering bills.

When Olympic gold-medal-winning bobsledder Kaillie Humphries and husband Travis Armbruster began chasing a dream beyond their storied athletic careers, the universe turned cruel.

Humphries was diagnosed with endometriosis, a genetic condition that can cause the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus to grow outside it. There can be incredible pain and, in the case of half the women who experience it, fertility can be impaired.

It can be crushing news, sending couples like them down the path of expensive in vitro fertilization with no guarantee of success.

“I definitely had times when I doubted it if ever was going to happen,” said Humphries, a San Diego resident. “Then there were times I wouldn’t question it, because we knew we were never going to give up until it did.”

The first, second, and third egg implantations failed.

“You get to a point, maybe it’s not meant for us,” said Humphries, who won her third gold for the United States in the 2022 Beijing Games after an ugly split with Team Canada that revolved around coaching.

“We’re going to put everything — our hearts, souls, finances, energy, love — into it and it might not work. The fear creeps in. OK, what if it doesn’t happen? But I always believed it could and knew we would exhaust every resource possible,” she said.

That they did.

The couple invested more than $50,000 for a fingers-crossed shot at parenthood. The money was more than twice the annual stipend Humphries received as a member of Team USA.

On June 14, a son named Aulden was born at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital.

“We’re going to tell him his college fun was what got him into this world,” said Armbruster, a former member of the USA Bobsled team who won a four-man gold medal at the Americas Cup in Lake Placid, New York. “He better be very smart or good at sports.”

Welcoming a son became the ultimate accomplishment in lives filled with athletic ones. There had been so much disappointment, so many dark thoughts on quiet nights.

The baby was not the only one crying in the delivery room.

“Definitely not,” said Humphries, who will turn 39 in September and felt the stress of the ticking clock. “He probably cried the least out of everybody.”

The arrival of Aulden followed a complicated and grueling 36 hours of labor. Humphries said doctors were on the verge of conducting a C-section at least 10 times, including when the baby’s heart rate dropped.

Aulden kept bouncing back. Spunky, like his mom.

“I said, whatever you need to do to get the baby into the world safely,” she said. “When he was born, it was the biggest relief humanly possible. It’s been a journey, years in the making.

“If there’s anything sport has taught me, when the pressure gets high, keep everything simple and take it step by step.”

As strange as it might seem to ask a multi-time Olympic gold medalist if something else is the biggest victory of a lifetime, Humphries said it’s a no-brainer.

Sports can be fleeting. Becoming a parent, especially with so many things stacked against that, soars far beyond the medal stand.

“One-hundred percent,” Humphries said. “You honestly can’t compare it. Both required work, sacrifice, teamwork, and family support.

The mental fortitude, it had to be used in different ways going through this.

“There’s commonalities when you get to that finish line, the sense of accomplishment, the emotions. But being a mom and a parent, it’s not even close,” she said.

There’s a different type of wiring in world-class athletes. Never-quit DNA. Teflon resolve.

Rarely, though, is it tested so fiercely.

“That was the big surprise, how emotional that specific moment was,” Armbruster said. “We had been planning, talking, and imaging for years, but it was all imaginary until that moment.”

Humphries also juggled the dilemma facing so many top-flight women’s athletes. Do you hit pause during your best athletic years to start a family while still young enough to pull it off? How do athletes in sports where winning and losing is decided by thousandths of a second balance those lives?

Superstars like Jennie Finch, Allyson Felix, Serena Williams, and Alex Morgan helped to light the torch.

Humphries will make a run at one more Olympics, targeting the 2026 games in Milan and Cortina, Italy. She earned a bye onto the national team based on her past finishes.

First, she’ll work at getting into shape. That will ramp up from December through March, leading into the world championships at Lake Placid.

“I don’t know how my body is going to react going into training,” she said.

Don’t bet against her. After all, she’s faced tougher odds.

©2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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“You’re pregnant.” I waited six years to hear those words. I went through multiple egg retrievals, several rounds of IVF, and suffered through two miscarriages. Throughout that time I had people ask a lot of questions and say a lot of pretty inappropriate things that only made an already devastating journey that much harder.

I had some support, but honestly, most of the time I felt very alone, isolated in my pain. Those around me didn’t know what to do or what to say. It was no one’s fault. Trying to find words or gestures of support for someone in such a vulnerable place is hard.

But with one in six couples experiencing infertility according to the World Health Organization, chances are you know someone who's trying to become a parent. And with gift giving being one of the five universal love languages, it’s a supportive gesture for friends dealing with infertility.

After going through my own journey, I started InCircle Fertility. Now I work with hundreds of families experiencing infertility and can say firsthand that you can’t go wrong with any of the gifts below. These are six meaningful gifts for loved ones struggling with infertility.

One important note: If you want to give a gift but don’t know what to say when you give it, I strongly believe that honesty is the best policy. Something like, “I don’t know the right words or the perfect thing to get you that shows my support, but this felt good, and I thought you might love it too.”

The post 6 Thoughtful Gifts for Those Navigating Infertility Struggles appeared first on Mom.com.

The time has come, and you’ve decided you want to try to get pregnant. You know what all goes into doing the deed when it comes to achieving the desired outcome, but as far as timing is concerned, you’re not 100% sure. Did I wait too long? Am I still fertile, and if so, when is my body most likely to be cooperative?

There are many ways to determine what time is the best time. So if you’re looking for answers around fertility, like when are women the most fertile, what ovulation has to do with it all, and the best ways to track your ovulation — read on.

The post When Are Females Most Fertile? appeared first on Mom.com.

In the United States, 19% of people of childbearing age are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying. This can be a confusing, frustrating, and devastating time, especially when it seems as though everyone around you is getting pregnant or posting their baby bump photos online.

If you are trying to get pregnant to no avail or are struggling with infertility and your partner’s infertility has been ruled out, there are several types of fertility treatments available to assist you in growing your family.

The post What Are Different Types of Fertility Treatments? appeared first on Mom.com.

The time has come. You’re ready to expand your family and have a baby. But the problem is you’ve been having regular sex, and month after month, the pregnancy test keeps coming out negative. Even though you track your ovulation and have been following a healthy lifestyle, you still haven’t gotten pregnant.

By this time, the question of infertility has crossed your mind. If that is the case, don’t worry because you are not alone. In fact, in the United States, 10% to 15% of couples are infertile, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“The chance of getting pregnant, even for a young healthy couple, is not more than 20 percent, or one in five, every month,” Dr. Alan Copperman, M.D., director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, told The New York Times.

To help you know if it’s infertility or something else, we'll cover the symptoms, what you can do, and different infertility treatments.

The post How Do I Know if I’m Infertile? appeared first on Mom.com.

Over the past five years, there has been a sharp rise in egg freezing. With more and more women in the media openly discussing their choice to freeze their eggs, it has allowed women to see how it is a viable option.

In 2018 the percentage of women freezing their eggs more than doubled, according to Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology’s recent study. This rise results from a variety of reasons, such as career ambitions, medical conditions, and a desire to wait for the right partner. Egg freezing, or oocyte cryopreservation, allows women to make more strategic life decisions.

Despite the rise in women completing this process, the cost to freeze eggs cannot be overlooked, so it is time for women to educate themselves and talk about the cost of this option.

The post How Much Does Freezing Your Eggs Cost? appeared first on Mom.com.

I’ve wanted kids since I was a kid myself. My husband and I were high school sweethearts, and kids were something we talked about even in our teens. We waited until we were married and our careers were somewhat established, but we started trying as soon as we could. We were in our mid-20s — young, healthy, and raring to go.

The post I Spent 18 Months Worrying That I Had a Fertility Issue, but It Was My Husband appeared first on Mom.com.

The struggles of Black women to receive adequate treatment while pregnant are becoming more widely known, but there is another struggle, before even becoming pregnant, that Black communities don't talk openly about: infertility.

Studies have shown that after one year of trying, 12% to 15% of couples have infertility issues, and for Black women, the barriers to conceiving are typically kept quiet. Some of these factors stem from Black women experiencing higher rates of conditions such as obesity and fibroids, as well as the hesitance and mistrust of doctors by the Black community. Making matters worse, one study based on data from an urban clinic in Atlanta, showed that some African-American women might have limited knowledge and education on infertility. This can partly be attributed to the lack of sharing our experiences and being open about our issues with fertility.

The post Why We Don’t Talk About Infertility in the Black Community appeared first on Mom.com.

While we all want to support our friends and family who are struggling with fertility or having a difficult time getting pregnant, we also don’t want to stick our foot in our mouths with a well-intentioned but misguided statement. In an effort to keep the conversation supportive, here are a few comments to avoid when talking to someone who is going through a very personal and challenging time with fertility.

The post What Not to Say to Those Struggling With Fertility appeared first on Mom.com.

When it comes to trying to conceive, there are so many factors that affect fertility; from our age to our lifestyles and, yes, even the products we choose to clean our house and wash our hair. Though there’s been some debate about exactly how much of an effect household chemicals have on fertility, many scientists do agree that there are certain toxins that can certainly make it harder to get pregnant. And for those of us who would do anything to see those two pink lines on a pregnancy test, the decision to avoid chemical products is an easy one.

But considering that there are so many myths out there about what chemicals have to do with our fertility, it can certainly be hard to know what to believe if you’re trying to conceive. Where do you start? Here’s the good news: These chemicals aren’t quite as scary as they might sound, but there are places where you can reduce the risk of harming your fertility just by making a few small changes in what you use around the house.

The post Household Chemicals That May Affect Your Fertility appeared first on Mom.com.