SAN DIEGO — 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.

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