Interview: CrossFit Athlete Kelly Baker Talks About Raising Awareness for Fertility Issues in Women
According to the World Health Organization, roughly one in six people globally experience infertility. That means that approximately 17% of people have problems conceiving. In the United States, one in five married women up to the age of 49 with no prior births are unable to get pregnant after a year of trying, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is an issue for any person who can get pregnant, including professional athletes, who often spend the prime baby-making years of their lives competing at the highest level possible.
It begs the question of whether an athlete who wants to have a baby should take a step back from competing to help her chance of conceiving. CrossFit Games athlete Kelly Baker had to make this decision this season.
[Related: Interview: Haley Adams on Finding the Joy In CrossFit Again After Her Year Away]
Baker’s Struggles
In a recent Instagram post, Baker was brutally honest, telling her followers she would not be competing in the 2024 CrossFit Games season.
In the middle of her fertility journey, Baker chose to step away from the sport she loved, at least momentarily. From the post:
- “I know how much stress our body goes under competing professionally in this sport- which is the one thing doctors tell me to try to reduce in order to help our chances of getting pregnant. So, it was either I backed off of training and still competed, or I took every measure to get my body ready to be a mom. The choice was obvious. My purpose right now – in my heart – is to create the best home for a baby, and all I want is to be a mom.”
Several high-level CrossFit athletes have left their competitive lives for some time to start families. Some have returned to competition; some have not. Names include Cassidy Lance-Mcwherter, Kara Saunders, Annie Thorisdottir, and, most recently, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr.
But every person’s fertility journey is different, and Baker was eager to share hers with the Morning Chalk Up as she hopes to be a resource for other women dealing with the same issues.
Baker Opens Up
Baker and her husband, Zach, decided to start trying to get pregnant the July before the 2023 Games. She describes herself as someone “born to be a mom,” and she’s ready to take on the responsibility.
- “I’m the youngest of three. Every one of them got pregnant within the first three months of trying,” Baker laughed. “We’re just thinking, ‘Oh, you just make this decision, and that’s it — pregnant! […] My expectation of how long it would take was off. It was so off.”
[Related: An Ode to the CrossFit Garage Gym]
Leaving the Games, Baker stayed positive. She told herself it was in God’s hands and was almost certain she would be pregnant by the time TYR Wodapalooza rolled around in January 2024. So she kept training and figuring out what her body could do, fully prepared to pull out of the competition as soon as she got a positive test.
- “I’m still going to train the way that I trained. And if, for some crazy reason, I’m not pregnant by Wodapalooza, then I’ll do it, that’ll be fine,” she said. “But deep down, I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m making it to January!’”
However, the calendar kept turning over. “Then each month, I realized, ‘Oh, shit, I might be competing,’” Baker remembered.
Baker did compete on a team in Miami and TYR WZA. They won.
- “It’s funny to me,” Baker reflected, “In my mind, I kept saying maybe that was God’s plan, to go out when you’re on top. But as crazy as I thought I wouldn’t be competing in the season, things were just falling into place.”
Stepping Away From CrossFit
A plethora of negative pregnancy tests led Baker to meet with her doctor and make some choices to help increase her chances of conception.
There were simple tweaks, like switching her diet to a more Mediterranean-style one with higher fat. But it wasn’t all that simple.
- “My whole life, I’ve dealt with a crazy amount of anxiety,” Baker said. “I can remember feeling like there was something different about me, and with CrossFit, it was something that almost took me out of ever wanting to compete anymore.”
- “Because my anxiety was so high, when I talked to my doctor about it, she was saying we needed to start doing everything we could to decrease it. Not just the emotional stress that comes from competing but also the anxiety that I have in general. And then also the stress of those workouts that they put on our body.”
Her doctor did not say it was stress that was causing Baker’s issues with fertility, but she made it clear that it played some part of a role. And if Baker were serious about becoming a mom, she would need to address it.
- “I remember feeling so jealous of, and not taking anything away from her, but seeing Tia get pregnant. Right after the Games, at a perfect time,” Baker said. “Or Annie getting pregnant again, and I realize we’re training the same way; if not, maybe they’re doing even a little bit more than me.”
- “Maybe it’s even just being a female in general. But this idea of giving up such a big part of you when I felt like not everyone has to do that. I wondered, ‘Why me?’”
[Related: Women Get More Health Benefits From Regular Exercise Than Men, New Research Suggests]
Raising Awareness
At this time, Baker was being peppered with questions about the upcoming season — what was her plan for the Open, was she going on a team, and would she be trying to qualify as an individual again?
- “So much of me was very hush-hush with saying I was trying to get pregnant. To share with the world how infertility feels, it felt so wrong,” Baker said. “And you know, growing up, we were told as women, you don’t tell anyone until you’re three months pregnant because the risk is high. So, I always had that in my mind — I’m just going to wait until I’m three months pregnant to tell anyone for safety reasons.”
It was only because she shared her past journey with anxiety and the positive feedback that it garnered that Baker decided to share this part of her.
- “So when it came to women in general, how quiet we keep our journey, I get it because it’s so personal,” Baker said. “I understand keeping it private, but how many girls are out there that have no idea? What am I going to do if I get pregnant? I announce it, and there is another girl in the same position I was in, frustrated with the fact that someone else is getting pregnant and she is not?”
- “When I started sharing [my struggles] with my friends and my family, it felt like almost everyone went through the same thing, but no one just talked about it.
- “If we just normalized that it’s been eight months and you are still not pregnant, I get that, and you are seen. I feel that we see the highlight reels of people’s relationships; it feels like every holiday that goes by, all I’m seeing is the wins. All these people are pregnant, and they’re announcing it — it can feel so lonely.”
[Related: Meet Dylan Gibbs: The First U.S. Male Collegiate Functional Fitness National Champion]
The response to Baker sharing her journey was incredible.
- “When I announced that I was having issues with fertility, I didn’t get anyone that reached out to me saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re not doing CrossFit anymore!’ It was hundreds of people saying, ‘You should be proud of yourself for giving up something for what you want, and we’re praying for you, or my wife and I went through this,’” Baker said.
- “So many people said it is a hard journey, but it will be so worth it. It made me wonder, why do we keep that a secret? Why is that something that we have to hide?”
Baker decided to embrace the struggle she and her husband were living. By sharing it with people, she hopes to affect some good along the way.
- “Women are never going to know their fertility journey until they’re in it, and they should not go into it with an expectation,” Baker said. “I just wish that we talked to women about these things earlier in life.”
With the Open upon us, Baker’s experience is much different this year than it has ever been.
- “I’m still doing a decent amount of training; I’m just trying to decrease the stress it’s putting on my body,” Baker said. “I’m still trying to get strong but having fun and doing everything I can to keep it under control.”
The mindset shift won’t necessarily be easy, especially as the season begins.
- “I think the change of pace can be nice, but I think with the season starting, I am going have to check in with myself and make sure I’m staying in the lane of remembering that, I don’t have to compare my journey right now to all my friends in the sport.”
This isn’t the end of Kelly Baker’s CrossFit career. At least, she doesn’t think so.
- Baker laughed: “Now I feel that I’ll definitely be back. But who knows? Maybe I’ll become a mom and just want to be a really great mom. And I don’t know if I want the sacrifices that come with the training. Who knows, time will tell!”
Featured image: Kelly Baker