Olympic gold medalist Kaillie Humphries, husband beat emotional odds to become parents – San Diego Union-Tribune
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.”
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, N.Y. “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.”
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.
