The difficult balance of pursuing a career in sport and raising a family is one many female athletes know too well, with many feeling it has to be one or the other rather than both. As Humphries says: “Growing up, I was always told, ‘You know it’s going to wreck your body? You’ll never be the same once you have a kid. You’re not going to be able to return’. I would always choose going to the Olympics. Being an Olympic champion was my goal.”
Looking back now, Humphries believes there is a lack of education for female athletes when it comes to their reproductive health and would have liked more knowledge about her options. More recently, some sports teams, particularly in the major United States basketball and soccer leagues, have started to help players pay to freeze their eggs – and Humphries wishes she had been offered something similar earlier in her athletic career.
“I wouldn’t have done it any other way, but I do have regrets regarding doing an egg freezing when I was younger. I would have liked to have that option,” she says. “I think if support can be there for a lot of young athletes, and the knowledge is there, they can choose when it’s right for them. They can have options and it can extend their career and they don’t have to choose between being an athlete and having kids.”
That education piece is an important pillar in the Kaillie Humphries Trailblazeher Foundation, which she set up recently. As well as aiming to “fill the gaps” for female athletes, such as funding equipment and coaching – “People have different dreams and aspirations, but they shouldn’t have to not be able to live them due to finances” – she also hopes to provide support for women in their fertility journeys and raise awareness about the reproductive options there are for young women.
“The education needs to be there. Educate young athletes, empower them. Whether they do egg retrievals or not, it’s up to them, but at least to have the power to make conscious decisions and not just wait until they’re 40, 41 and retired and trying to turn back the clock.”
Despite the growing amount of representation of female athletes having children, Humphries believes there is still a stigma around pregnancy in sport and an institutional lack of support and acknowledgement.
“Sometimes women being pregnant is looked at as an injury. There are similarities regarding the fact your body’s different and it’s changed and there’s a whole return-to-play programme, but it doesn’t make you weaker. It doesn’t make it impossible to train through a pregnancy. That mindset needs to be abolished.”
When asked if she has any worries about juggling motherhood and her eventual return to sport – she has ambitions to top the Olympic podium for a fourth time – Humphries is confident that she will be able to balance the two. “I know it’s not going to be easy, but I reached a point in my career where I needed that change. I didn’t want to have to sacrifice my family goals for my career any longer. I’ve seen other women go out and do it. I wish I didn’t need to see that, but I did. Women like Allyson Felix, Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. I look at the CrossFit women that go out and are just killing it super pregnant and it has encouraged me to go, ‘OK, I can do this.’
“I’m not worried. I want to be able to show my child or my children that they can go out and chase their dreams and be the best versions of themselves and that they don’t have to make sacrifices for that, that they can have it all.”
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