Yuen: Fresh off Paris gold, Paralympic swimming champ Mallory Weggemann fights for IVF access

Mallory Weggemann and her husband, Jay Snyder, knew that they wanted to shed light and soften hearts around the issue of infertility and in vitro fertilization. What they couldn’t have predicted is how their method of trying to bring a baby into the world would grow more politically fraught — even in the years they were trying to conceive.

If Weggemann, of Eagan, isn’t a household name in Minnesota by now, she should be.

The swimmer clinched gold and silver medals this summer in Paris — her fourth Paralympic games. She and Snyder co-directed “Watershed,” a documentary film that reveals Weggemann’s quest for gold at the Tokyo games along with the couple’s agonizing journey to start a family.

As if four career gold medals, a toddler and a movie weren’t enough, Weggemann isn’t resting yet. As the election draws near, she and Snyder are again sharing their story in the fight for reproductive rights, including access to IVF.

In 2022, the couple were gutted by the news that their first embryo transfer was unsuccessful. Their hearts sank again when they learned from news reports that Roe v. Wade would be overturned. They worried that not only would abortion rights be significantly restricted, but that the ruling could open the gates to limiting procedures like IVF.

Their fears became true earlier this year when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created by IVF are children, prompting clinics in the state to temporarily halt treatments.

“I don’t think we ever thought that we’d be at this point in the U.S., and here we are,” Weggemann told me. “The way that infertility is being spoken about in our country, and as long as IVF and reproductive rights are on the table, I think that we are going to see more and more of a decline in social acceptance.”

Their daughter, Charlotte, is now 19 months old. She’s the type of kid who toddles through an airport terminal and waves to every person to make sure they know they are seen.

That children like Charlotte — their very existence — are up for debate is a painful affront to couples who fought desperately to become parents.

“Our daughter doesn’t exist in a world without science,” Snyder said. “Through our film, you get to see our journey together, husband and wife, in the operating room. Seeing the [embryo] transfers, the highs and the lows, the loss we experienced to then find our greatest joy. That doesn’t happen without access to IVF.”

Several weeks ago, I shared with you the story of other men who became fathers only through the help of assisted reproduction. No matter what you think of Gov. Tim Walz’s politics, know this: His outspokenness around his and his wife’s infertility journey has helped other men yearning to be dads feel less alone.

We have a lot of work to do to reduce the stigma and shame of male-factor infertility in particular. When people heard that Weggemann and Snyder couldn’t have a baby, many assumed the condition stemmed from Weggemann. That could be because of longstanding notions about disability and motherhood. Weggemann was paralyzed from the waist down at the age of 18 after a botched epidural to treat back pain.

”There’s a lot of unconscious bias that the disability community is not sexually active,” Weggemann said. “Therefore, how could we have children?”

Another misconception, of course, is that infertility is simply a woman’s problem. That’s despite the fact that men and women contribute about equally toward the condition.

Snyder knew he would likely never be a dad after undergoing a medical surgery when he was 13. Until he met Weggemann, he stayed quiet about his circumstances. “Men don’t talk about it. Men don’t want to share what their struggles are. My hope was, ‘Why can’t I be that voice?’ ” he said.

In “Watershed,” launched this summer on Peacock, Snyder’s IVF heartbreak is on display as much as his wife’s. Yes, it was Weggemann’s body that endured the hundreds of hormone injections and physically carried the embryos. But Snyder wanted and prayed for that baby as much, and he was willing to do whatever he could to fight for their family.

“You’re not less of a man because you can’t produce sperm,” he told me. “You’re stronger by sharing. You’re stronger by being vulnerable. You’re stronger by enduring what we went through.”

IVF has come under fire by some religious conservatives because it involves creating embryos and discarding those that the patients do not need. Yet it has the widespread support of Americans, with seven in 10 adults saying access to IVF is a “good thing,” according to the Pew Research Center. That’s perhaps why former President Donald Trump claimed in a recent Fox News town hall to be the “father of IVF,” while acknowledging at the same event that he only recently learned what it is.

While Weggemann led the Pledge of Allegiance at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, she’s never publicly endorsed a political candidate until now.

She and Snyder are speaking up in support of Kamala Harris and Walz. Weggemann says that’s the ticket that will fight for continued access to IVF and protect basic rights and freedoms: Who do you get to love and marry? How do you start a family? She and her husband dream of having a second child someday.

“I’m also a woman with a disability,” Weggemann said. “The other side has not been very kind about how they feel about the disability community. … We are now in a society that feels like it operates more on fear and hate than love and compassion, and that’s not a world that I want to raise a child in.”

Weggemann, 35, said there was nothing like being at the top of a podium in Paris, hearing her national anthem, and seeing her daughter in the stands.

In four years, it would be her ultimate dream to do it again on home soil — and glimpse her two kids cheering her on.