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The news from Kellie Gerardi is space-tacular. Six months after revealing that she had experienced her fourth pregnancy loss, the astronaut revealed that she was six weeks pregnant.
On August 28, Kellie, who has a 7-year-old daughter named Delta with husband Steven Baumruk, posted a video of herself undergoing an ultrasound to Instagram with the caption, "Crying in the parking lot of my IVF clinic again, but this time happy tears." "To me, seeing that flicker is crucial. We have a long way to go, but if I and this tiny miracle can survive for a few more weeks, I might be able to graduate from my IVF clinic this time."
Above the video, the 36-year-old captioned it, "POV: my 6-week pregnancy scan for a heartbeat following loss."
As she leaves the doctor's office with a printed-out ultrasound scan after receiving the good news, she is clearly emotional in the emotional clip.
I feel like I just let out a breath that I've been holding for weeks," Kellie, who has secondary infertility, wrote on the second video. "I know I'm not out of the woods yet," she wrote. "Grow, baby, grow!"
Nearly a year has passed since the researcher began IVF last fall, a journey she has been very transparent about with her social media followers.
After her February miscarriage, Kellie, who plans to travel to space next year, revealed that she had been given the all-clear to undergo another round of IVF back in June.
"It’s an extremely bittersweet time for me, and my emotions about it are all over the map because I’m still reeling from the shock of my loss, but I’m trying to channel hope and optimism," she wrote at the time on Instagram. "We have 3 embryos and at least two opportunities for transfer attempts this summer (based on the latest timing for my research crew’s science spaceflight in 2026)—if both transfer attempts failed this summer, we’d try the third after 2026."
Actually, Kellie, who has been posting updates on her IVF and embryo transfer procedure on social media for the past few months, said she was ready to have to break a whole new kind of news to her followers.
On August 28, she posted on Instagram, "I was ready to post & ghost and put my phone on airplane mode for a while to disappear to grieve again." "Instead, I got the news I’ve been praying for."
Kellie continued, "Even though my doctor and I are both very aware that we're not quite done yet, I'm determined to enjoy every morning that I wake up pregnant, and I have a great deal of hope that I'll survive the first trimester and graduate from my IVF clinic this time."
