"Crying in the parking lot of my IVF clinic again, but this time happy tears."
Astronaut, mom and researcher Kellie Gerardi committed to taking social media followers on her IVF journey, but after she suffered a devastating miscarriage in February, Gerardi took a brief hiatus from her public platform as she mourned her fourth pregnancy loss.
On Aug. 27, she shared an Instagram reel with the caption, "Crying in the parking lot of my IVF clinic again, but this time happy tears."
Gerardi is six weeks pregnant.
"We're still far from out of the woods, but if me and this little Cheerio-sized miracle can make it another few weeks together, I might finally graduate from my IVF clinic this time," she wrote.
The accompanying video shows Gerardi in what looks like a doctor's office waiting nervously, looking at images of her embryo on a pregnancy scan and walking out of the office with a giant smile, clutching ultrasound images in her hand.
Gerardi, the mom of daughter Delta, suffers from secondary infertility. She spent six years "trying it all" to get pregnant, she's said, including acupuncture and progesterone. She started IVF in the fall of 2024 and retrieved 24 eggs, but only 13 of those eggs were mature and just 10 could be fertilized.
In the end, Gerardi and her husband had only one genetically normal embryo. That was the embryo she miscarried earlier this year.
With her plan to go on a space mission in 2026 in the balance, Gerardi began the IVF process all over again this spring.
"We have three embryos and at least two opportunities for transfer attempts this summer (based on latest timing for my research crew's science spaceflight in 2026)," she wrote on Instagram on June 11.
One of the embryo transfers was successful. But Gerardi had prepared what she would say to her followers if it was not.
"I had a short note ready to share yesterday if the ultrasound was shattering news, especially after my recent hCG issues, and I was prepared to post and ghost and put my phone on airplane mode for a while to disappear to grieve again," she wrote on Instagram on August 28.
"Instead, I got the news I've been praying for," she continued, "and while my doctor and I are both very clear-eyed that we're not out of the woods yet, I'm very committed to celebrating every single morning that I wake up pregnant, and I have immense hope to make it out of the first trimester and graduate from my IVF clinic this time."