In the midst of one the most challenging moments of her life, Gwen Walz—the wife of potential future Democratic Vice President Tim Walz—didn’t turn to her closest family or friends. No matter how much she loved them, she just couldn’t bring herself to share the full details of her fertility struggles; the daily reality of what trying to conceive looked like; the private agony of what it entailed.
“Our fertility journey was an incredibly personal and difficult experience,” she shares with Glamour, going into depth for the first time about her path to parenthood. “Like so many who have experienced these challenges, we kept it largely to ourselves at the time.”
Instead, it was a neighbor—a nurse—who would come around to help “with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process.” A teacher, Walz would “rush home from school,” her neighbor would come over, “and she would give me the shots to ensure we stayed on track.”
IUI—Intrauterine Insemination—is when sperm is placed directly into the uterus (increasing the number of healthy sperm that will ideally reach the fallopian tubes) to improve the chances of egg fertilization.
The couple, who married 1994, finally gave birth to their daughter Hope, now 23, in 2001, and their son Gus, now 17, in 2006. “Like millions of families across the country,” she says, “for years, Tim and I tried to start a family through fertility treatments.”
Governor Tim Walz with his daughter Hope, then a young baby, at HalloweenHarris-Walz campaign
But now, Gwen Walz is choosing to share more details about “the anxiety, the agony, and the desperation that can eat away at your soul”, because “we hope other families find solace in our story.” And because, she says, “Knowing that pain, I cannot fathom the cruelty of politicians who want to take away the freedom for couples to access the care they need.
