by The cold sterility of the office of a gynecologist is about as far away as you can come from a tennis court, a basketball fitness studio or a bob run. The crossing white paper, the flimsy open dress with an open face that vulnerable and freezes the patient, the intimidation of silver instruments placed on a table-there is hardly an environment that feels encouraging.
But some of the highest heights and lowest depths of women’s life take place in such rooms, just like in clay sites, snow -covered terrain or hardwood floors. It is not a little thing that the top fertility of women matches their sporting performance of the peak times. It is a cruel application of fate that has to ask themselves as professional athletes whether they want to have children – and if so, when and how – they also concentrate on their limits as long as possible.
As a result, family planning for many women who compete at the elite level is pushed into the background, simply because it is nowhere to be done differently. The four -time Olympic medalist Kaillie Humphries admitted in a telephone interview: “There was no thoughts about family planning at all” when she first started with 17 bobs. Elite athletes and Olympioners often structure their lives in four to 12 years of increment that have been dictated by the Olympic cycle. Humphries only seriously considered getting a baby when she was in my early 30s.
Part of this delay was based on the possibility of pursuing both a career and motherhood. Bobsleigh in particular keeps athletes on the road for months. (Humphries and the Olympic team in 2026 will travel to Europe this October.) Without female role models in sports, which had successfully compensated for the elite competition with the upbringing of a family, Humphries turned to her male colleagues – many told her that it was simply not possible to do both.
The idea that women cannot have everything – or worse, that they do not have the choice of annoying the tennis legend and the former Olympian Maria Sharapova. Although she designed her son without fertility support, Sharapova is a strong advocate of the autonomy of women when deciding when and how children. For this purpose, she is an investor in Coftility, a company that offers fertility services such as IVF and egg freezen. The company also enables women to donate half of their relaxed eggs in exchange for free fertility treatments.
“As a professional athlete, my body was literally my business,” Sharapova told the Guardian by e -mail. She noticed similar dilemma in the industries, and investing in freezing eggs was an easy way for her to “reduce the stress of the so -called biological clock”. Perhaps this ticking watch one day is nothing more than a relic of the past – a by -product of an era in which the reproductive decisions of women were more dictated by external forces than from personal autonomy.
At least that’s Sharapova’s hope. “If women have the opportunity to navigate their career on their own conditions by freezing their eggs, they switch on more autonomy in all aspects of their lives,” she emphasized. “You can take the time to find the right partner and to start a family if you are financially and emotionally ready.”
Autonomy is the root of almost every question that women ask themselves about children. But sometimes the timing is not a question of choice. Humphries learned that on the hard tour. When she decided that she was ready for motherhood, she assumed that her body would work together – just like in so many other cases.
“My body always answered when I needed it,” she said. “And I think that was just me immature. I thought my body was incredible. As an Olympic gold medalist, it is always reacted when I needed them, and I only assumed that if I wanted children, I stopped using protection and immediately becoming pregnant. And that was not the case – not even nearby. “
Instead, endometriosis in stage 4 was diagnosed with Humphries after an MRI had resulted in a large cyst on her ovary. When she received it to remove it, the doctors found that endometriosis was widespread and was bound to their organs, which made surgical removal impossible. With just a few other options, she and her husband, colleague Travis Armbruster, went “directly to IVF”.
Do not make a mistake: the IVF process will be exhausting. And because Humphries tried to get pregnant while she was still on the Olympic level, she had to carve out time and energy to stimulate her ovaries, to climb her eggs, to frighten them, to fake them, to thaw, to develop them, to develop them back into their womb and to transport a pregnancy to the term. Navigating in this process also meant difficult conversations with the United States Bobs and Skeleton Federation, which she described as “hard”.
In many ways, Humphries was one of the lucky ones. Their annual content of $ 30,000 could be moved towards the IVF cycles. USA Bobs/Skelett supported her wish to become a mother. Her trainers trusted that they could return to the Olympic form for the next winter games. But in contrast to the WNBA, which the players freeze up to $ 60,000 for fertility treatments such as eggs and IVF, Humphries said that Olympic athletes often have to take care of themselves. You and crossbowers have financed your IVF trip personally and the costs for travel with your child in overseas so that Humphries can continue to compete.
Then the question of her ranking was. If part of her pregnancy or her relaxation took too long after birth, she risked losing her in sports and being forced to start from below – despite her Olympic medals and titles – simply because she chose a child. After the birth, she got 18 months to return to an elite level. Otherwise, she would lose her monthly scholarship, insurance and ranking to fall. Humphries returned to the competition just five months after the birth.
Both Humphries and Sharapova believe that more talks between older and younger athletes have to take place. While Sharapova did not personally have pressure to have a child in front of 30, she admitted: “I can easily see and understand how other women could feel this social pressure. It is no secret that women reach the top fertility between their late teenagers and the late 20s. And although the idea that women must have children during this time is out of date, it makes sense that age would still be a biological concern. “
Humphries repeated this feeling. “A lot more conversations have to happen,” she said. “And I think there is generally a lot more support for athletes. Because as I have learned, it is not always easy to get pregnant and start a family, and it’s not always easy. “
“I think especially as athletes and high -performance competitors, there is not enough education or understanding of fertility. I wish I had frozen my eggs when I was younger … it was a crazy scramble when I finally did it. I could have done it at a more comfortable time – for example during an injury when I was already physically below. “
Athletes in the twenties added, she almost never prioritized the fertility planning for the setting of a trainer or investing in devices. “They are still trying to earn this first gold medal or qualify for the Olympic Games. You don’t have the financial means or the mental bandwidth to say: “Do you know what? Let me think about my fertility. ‘”
Part of the solution lies with organizations such as national Olympic committees and individual sports associations that could include family planning in their budgets. But it is also due to experienced athletes to step in and say: “Learn from me. Take it from me. And now, how can we support the younger generation? “
“I just want everyone to have the option – because I didn’t do it,” Humphries closed. “I hope the younger generation notices:” Do you know what? You can have everything. You can be a mother. You can be competitive. You can be the best in the world. ‘
“Look at Naomi Osaka: There are women who return to sports and appear as a badass mothers. I want 20-year-old to know: If you want it, you can have it. “
