Tammy Duckworth set to become first senator to give birth
This will be the Illinois Democrat’s second child
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Paul Kane.
In six weeks, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) will turn 50. But the senator is already celebrating.
Duckworth is pregnant with her second child, she told Lynn Sweet of the Chicago-Sun Times. She is set to become the first sitting senator to give birth while in office.
“As tough as it’s been to juggle motherhood and the demands of being in the House and now the Senate, it’s made me more committed to doing this job,” she told Sweet.
Her first child, Abigail, was born in 2014. A few months later, while still on maternity leave, Duckworth decided to run for Senate. Duckworth is a veteran who served in Iraq, where she lost both of her legs in an Army helicopter crash in 2004.
The senator struggled to conceive after Abigail, she told Sweet.
“I’ve had multiple IVF cycles and a miscarriage trying to conceive again, so we’re very grateful,” Duckworth said.
Her colleagues were thrilled to hear her news.
“When she told me several weeks ago that she and Bryan were expecting a new baby to join their little Abigail, I was speechless. I have learned to never underestimate Tammy Duckworth,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.
With more than 20 female senators, the world’s most deliberative body has had to change its traditional status as an old boy’s club. Back in 2001, then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) adopted two children and was often seen in the hallways and sometimes just off the Senate floor with her baby.
