Olympic bobsleigh champion Kaillie Humphries eyes more glory after difficult IVF journey

Kaillie Humphries will compete at the Winter Olympics following a testing IVF treatment journey

Kaillie Humphries will look to add to her three gold medals (AP)

Triple Olympic bobsleigh champion Kaillie Humphries stood on a frosty medals podium in Latvia last December, her infant son Aulden nestled in her arms.

It was her first World Cup victory since becoming a mother, a triumph that felt long overdue and deeply personal.

As she savoured the moment, a private highlight reel of the preceding two-and-a-half years played in her mind: a grueling journey of IVF treatment involving daily injections, four implant attempts, and profound uncertainty.

This period was marked by doubts about her chances of conceiving and the complex logistics of sustaining an elite athletic career while her body and mind were stretched in ways she had never anticipated.

Above all, it was the overwhelming sensation of finally being back at the pinnacle of her sport.

"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.

Kaillie Humphries (right) has won three Olympic gold medals (AP)

"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 offered a poignant snapshot, the upcoming Milano Cortina Olympics will present the full portrait of her remarkable return.

The 40-year-old is poised for her sixth Games, having previously served as an alternate for Canada in 2006, before securing gold in 2010 and 2014, and bronze in 2018.

Humphries later switched nationalities, winning the inaugural Olympic gold in women's monobob for the United States at the 2022 Games.

This time, she competes as a new mother, armed with a fresh understanding of what peak performance can entail in a sport that demands absolute control but often punishes the illusion of it.

"For sure, 100% I'm a lot more easy-going," she reflected. "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."

Despite the inevitable lack of sleep, Humphries views motherhood as an undeniable source of strength.

Timing a pregnancy within the demanding four-year Olympic cycle presents a formidable challenge for any female athlete.

For Humphries, the path was further complicated by a 2021 diagnosis of Stage Four endometriosis, a condition that creates scar tissue, blocking fallopian tubes and impeding ovulation. Her diagnosis meant in-vitro fertilisation was her only viable option.

She underwent two egg retrievals in the spring and summer following the 2022 Games, but the process, including daily hormonal injections, took a significant toll on her body.

Humphries previously competed for Canada before switching nationalities (Getty Images)

Faced with the need to maintain both her world ranking and her monthly stipend and insurance from the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, she made the difficult decision to return to bobsleigh in the autumn.

"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 explained.

She went on to secure a silver and a bronze at the 2023 World Championships. Following this, she endured three successive embryo transfers, all of which unfortunately failed.

Undeterred, she and her husband, Travis Armbruster, a former American bobsleigh athlete, resolved to try one last time. The fourth attempt was successful, and Aulden was born in June 2024.

Life on the road with an infant is an intricate exercise in flexibility and delegation, a true 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 shared. "It's give and take, we've adapted."

Humphries had not initially planned to publicly narrate every intensely personal step of her pregnancy efforts.

However, when she began sharing her struggle on social media, the responses from other women poured in, offering a powerful sense of solidarity.

"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."

Humphries (left) will go for gold once more in Milan-Cortina (REUTERS)

Beyond her personal journey, she is driven by a desire to help reshape the broader narrative of motherhood in sport. Cradling Aulden on the podium in December was a powerful statement towards this goal.

"As much as I hate the fact that seeing is believing, it had to be for me," she admitted.

"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."