Olympics-Humphries heads to another Games even stronger after challenging IVF journey

By Lori Ewing

MILAN, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Triple Olympic bobsleigh champion Kaillie Humphries stood on a frosty medals podium in Latvia in December, her son Aulden tucked into her arms and her first World Cup victory since becoming a mother in the bag -- finally.

A private highlight reel of the previous two-and-a-half years ran through her head: IVF treatment that included daily injections, four implant attempts and much uncertainty, both around her chances of becoming pregnant and the logistics of keeping alive a career while her body and mind were stretched in ways she never anticipated.

Mostly, though, it was the feeling of finally being back.

"Being able to stand on the podium with (Aulden) and know how far we've come, knowing it wasn't easy to get pregnant, knowing we had to sacrifice, last year being so frustrated with my body (when her push times were slower) and it not performing the way I wanted it to, the biggest relief was: we did it," Humphries told Reuters in an interview.

"I got through all of that. (Aulden) is here. I'm getting back to high-performance sport. I feel myself again," she added. "That winning feeling wasn't like 'Sweet, I'm the best!' but it was more like, 'Okay, we're back to thriving, and not just in survival mode.' And that felt really good."

If that December win was a snapshot, this month's Milano Cortina Olympics will be the full portrait.

The 40-year-old is set for a sixth Games. She was an alternate for Canada in 2006 and went on to win gold in 2010 and 2014 and bronze in 2018.

Humphries switched nationalities and won the inaugural Olympic gold in women's monobob for the United States at the 2022 Games.

This time she goes as a new mother, with a new understanding of what performance can look like in a sport that prides itself on control but punishes the illusion of it.

"For sure, 100% I'm a lot more easy-going," she said. "I have this new lease on sport when it comes to controlling what I can control, letting go of the fear that if it's not perfect, it can't happen.

"I think understanding of being a mum on tour, I got two hours' sleep last night, you still have to slide, you don't just get to give up."

Lack of sleep aside, Humphries sees motherhood as a strength.

ONLY HOPE

Timing a pregnancy within the four-year Olympic window is tricky for any female athlete.

Humphries was diagnosed in 2021 with Stage Four endometriosis, which creates scar tissue that blocks fallopian tubes and interferes with ovulation. Her diagnosis meant in-vitro fertilisation was her only hope.

She did two egg retrievals in the spring and summer following the 2022 Games but the process, including the daily hormonal injections, took a toll on her body and she decided to return to bobsleigh in the autumn, needing to maintain both her world ranking and her monthly stipend and insurance from the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

"In sport, you only get one year out and then you lose it, so I couldn't afford to sit out a year and keep doing this process without doing it simultaneously with sport," she said.

She won a silver and bronze at the 2023 World Championships, and then had three successive embryo transfers, all of which failed. She and husband Travis Armbruster, a former American bobsleigh athlete, decided they would give it one last shot. The fourth attempt took, and Aulden was born in June 2024.

Life on the road is an exercise in flexibility and delegation. It is also a team project.

"Sometimes, bath time is mine because Aulden just wants mum, and Travis is going to go and polish some (bobsleigh) runners for me," Humphries said. "It's give and take, we've adapted."

Humphries did not plan to narrate every intensely personal step of her pregnancy efforts but when she started talking on social media about her struggle, the replies from other women poured in.

"That's part of what fuelled me, once I put the first post out, the reactions that I got," she said. "Not everything is just gifted or granted or guaranteed. For a long time I did think getting pregnant was going to be easy ... and I'm learning it's not the case for one in eight families in America.

"And I don't get to pick endo, it's (partly) a genetic condition. So if it helps bring awareness, and whether it's for family planning or reproductive services or just living a life a little more free of pain (with) periods, I want people to know what it is and that it's not just your typical suck it up and be tough scenario."

She also wants to help change the bigger picture of motherhood in sport, and a big part of cradling Aulden on the podium in December was exactly that.

"As much as I hate the fact that seeing is believing, it had to be for me," she said. "There were women ahead of me -- Allyson Felix, Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka -- and I could look at them and know that it was possible.

"Other women go 'Wait, this is what I want,' that they then have that courage and the ability to go out and do it themselves. And that's more than just me winning a race."