The cold sterility of a gynecologist’s office is about as far removed as you can get from a tennis court, a basketball gym, or a bobsled run. The crinkling white paper, the flimsy open-face gown that leaves patients vulnerable and freezing, the intimidating silver instruments laid out neatly on a table – it’s hardly an environment that feels empowering.
Yet some of the highest highs and lowest lows of women’s lives take place in such rooms, just as they do on clay courts, snowy terrain or hardwood floors. It’s no small thing that women’s peak fertility coincides with their peak athletic performance. It’s a cruel twist of fate that just as professional female athletes must begin asking themselves whether they want to have children – and, if so, when and how – they are also focused on pushing their bodies to their limits for as long as possible.
As a result, for many women competing at the elite level, family planning gets pushed to the back burner simply because there’s nowhere else for it to go. Four-time Olympic medalist Kaillie Humphries admitted in a phone interview, “There was not a thought about family planning at all” when she first began bobsledding at 17. Elite athletes and Olympians often structure their lives in four-to-12-year increments, dictated by the Olympic cycle. Humphries didn’t seriously consider having a baby until she was in her early 30s.
Part of that delay stemmed from feeling like she didn’t have the option to pursue both career and motherhood. Bobsleigh, in particular, keeps athletes on the road for months at a time. (This October, Humphries and the 2026 Olympic team will head to Europe and won’t return until March.) Without female role models in the sport who had successfully balanced elite competition with raising a family, Humphries turned to her male counterparts – many of whom told her outright that it simply wasn’t possible to do both.
The idea that women can’t have it all – or, worse, that they don’t have the choice to try – is something that irks tennis legend and former Olympian Maria Sharapova. Though she conceived her son without fertility assistance, Sharapova is a strong advocate for women’s autonomy in deciding when and how to have children. To that end, she is an investor in Cofertility, a company offering fertility services such as IVF and egg freezing. The company also allows women to donate half their retrieved eggs in exchange for free fertility treatments.
“As a professional athlete, my body was quite literally my business,” Sharapova told the Guardian via email. Women across industries face similar dilemmas, she noted, and investing in egg freezing was an easy way for her to “mitigate the strain of the so-called biological clock”. Perhaps, one day, that ticking clock will be nothing more than a relic of the past – a byproduct of an era when women’s reproductive choices were dictated by external forces rather than personal autonomy.
At least, that’s Sharapova’s hope. “When women have the opportunity to navigate their careers on their own terms by freezing their eggs, they unlock more autonomy in all aspects of their lives,” she emphasized. “They can take the time to find the right partner and start a family when they are financially and emotionally ready.”
Autonomy is at the root of nearly every question women ask themselves about having children. But sometimes, timing isn’t a matter of choice. Humphries learned this the hard way. Once she decided she was ready for motherhood, she assumed her body would cooperate – just as it had in so many other instances.
“My body has always responded when I needed it to,” she said. “And I think this was just me being immature. This was me thinking my body was amazing. As an Olympic gold medalist, it’s always responded when I needed it to, and I just assumed that when I wanted to have kids, I’d stop using protection and get pregnant right away. And that was not the case – not even close.”
Instead, Humphries was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis after an MRI revealed a large cyst on her ovary. When she went in to have it removed, doctors discovered that the endometriosis was widespread and had attached to her organs in a way that made surgical removal impossible. With few other options, she and her husband, fellow bobsledder Travis Armbruster, “went straight to IVF”.
Make no mistake: the IVF process is grueling. And because Humphries was attempting to get pregnant while still competing at an Olympic level, she had to carve out the time and energy to stimulate her ovaries, retrieve her eggs, freeze them, thaw them, develop embryos, transfer them back into her womb, and, ultimately, carry a pregnancy to term – all while maintaining her training regimen. Navigating that process also meant having difficult conversations with the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, something she described as “tough”.
Yet, in many ways, Humphries was one of the lucky ones. Her $30,000 annual salary could be put toward IVF cycles. USA Bobsled/Skeleton was supportive of her desire to become a mother. Her coaches trusted that she would be able to return to Olympic shape in time for the next Winter Games. But unlike the WNBA, which reimburses players up to $60,000 for fertility treatments such as egg freezing and IVF, Humphries said Olympic athletes are often left to fend for themselves. She and Armbruster have personally financed their IVF journey, as well as the cost of traveling with their child overseas so that Humphries can continue to compete.
Then, there was the matter of her ranking. If any part of her pregnancy or postpartum recovery took too long, she risked losing her standing in the sport and being forced to start over from the bottom – despite her Olympic medals and titles – simply because she chose to have a child. After giving birth, she was given 18 months to return to an elite level; otherwise, she would lose her monthly stipend, insurance and ranking in one fell swoop. Humphries returned to competition just five months postpartum.
Both Humphries and Sharapova believe more conversations need to take place between older and younger female athletes. While Sharapova didn’t personally feel pressure to have a child before 30, she acknowledged, “I can easily see and understand how other women could feel that societal pressure. It’s no secret that women reach peak fertility between their late teens and late 20s. And even though the idea that women must have children during that time is outdated, it makes sense that age would still be a biological concern.”
Humphries echoed that sentiment. “A lot more conversations need to happen,” she said. “And I think there needs to be a lot more support for female athletes in general. Because, as I’ve learned, getting pregnant and starting a family is not always straightforward, and it’s not always easy.”
“I think, especially as female athletes and high-performance competitors, there’s not enough education or understanding around fertility. I do wish I had frozen my eggs when I was younger… it was a mad scramble when I finally did it. I could have done it at a more convenient time – during an injury, for instance, when I was already physically down.”
Athletes in their 20s, she added, are almost never going to prioritize fertility planning over hiring a coach or investing in equipment. “They’re still trying to earn that first gold medal or qualify for the Olympics. They don’t have the financial means or the mental bandwidth to say, ‘You know what? Let me think about my fertility right now.’”
Part of the solution lies with organizations such as national Olympic committees and individual sports federations, which could incorporate family planning into their budgets. But it’s also up to veteran 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,” Humphries concluded. “I hope the younger generation realizes, ‘You know what? You can have it all. You can be a mom. You can be competitive. You can be the best in the world.’
“Look at Naomi Osaka: there are women coming back to sport and performing as badass moms. I want 20-year-olds to know: If you want it, you can have it.”
