Gwen Walz Opens Up About Infertility Treatments in New Essay

Gwen Walz’s fertility journey has been a major talking point in her husband’s vice presidential campaign, cementing the Walzs’ role as advocates for reproductive rights. As the election draws nearer, Gwen is speaking out more about her experience battling infertility — even though it’s “never easy” to do so, she said in an as-told-to essay in Women’s Health published yesterday.

“I think all of us who speak about our reproductive challenges wish we didn’t have to,” continued Gwen, whose husband, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is running for vice president on Vice President Kamala Harris’ ticket. “You would think that you’d get used to it, but you don’t… Still, it’s too important, and the fight is too real.”

Gwen explained that she first decided to share her story when the Alabama Supreme Court effectively ended in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state by ruling that embryos should be considered children under state law. When the decision came out, Gwen remembered telling her husband that they “absolutely [did] not have a choice” when it came to speaking about their own fertility journey publicly. Until that point, the couple hadn’t talked about it at all, even with people close to them, but the news “brought us to our knees.”

The Walzs had always wanted a family, Gwen explained, and became “increasingly concerned” when it didn’t happen naturally. They started fertility treatments and Gwen was prescribed Clomid, a medication that “increases your chances of pregnancy by helping your body produce an egg,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. Gwen also needed to get shots before an intrauterine insemination (IUI) procedure “that would increase my chances of pregnancy and successful fertilization,” she explained.

Exactly which fertility treatments the Walzs used in those days was subject to some confusion earlier in the campaign, prompting Gwen to clarify that she’d undergone IUI, not IVF. IUI is a procedure that increases the chances of pregnancy by “placing specially prepared sperm directly in the uterus” during ovulation, per Mayo Clinic. IVF is a more complex process that involves collecting and removing mature eggs from the ovaries, fertilizing them with sperm in a lab, and placing one or more eggs in the uterus, according to Mayo Clinic.

Gwen described the stress and heartache brought on by “years” of infertility and the complications the couple experienced “with just simple procedures and processes.” She and Tim “took breaks,” especially during stressful times like the end of the school year, as the couple were both teachers at the time. “It is a journey,” she said. “You’re just trying different things, or even cycling through different doctors.” The hardest part, she recalled was waiting to find out if a treatment had worked, and said it “felt like a failure” when it didn’t.

In the fact of all the stress, Gwen knew she needed to stay as “even-keeled” as possible. She felt a need to “control” her mental health, she said, “because you don’t want to throw off anything in the process by being too upset or too anxious or too excited.”

Eventually, their hard work and patience paid off. Gwen and Tim successfully conceived via IUI, and their daughter, Hope, was born in January 2001. Their son Gus was born in October 2006.

Despite how hard it is to relive those years of treatment, Gwen said, she’s determined to use her story to help others. On the campaign trail, she shared, people “thank me for telling my story, and they tell me a bit of their story.” The Minnesota first lady described that experience as “galvanizing,” and it shows that what she’s doing has a real impact. “I tell my story in the hope that it will empower people to take their own power,” Walz said, “and change the way forward.”

Before you go, read about the celebrities who’ve opened up about their abortion experiences: