U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is expecting her second child, she announced Tuesday. 
 
 “Northwestern Medicine Fertility strikes again,” Duckworth, who’s been vocal about her family’s use of assisted reproductive measures, told me Tuesday afternoon. 
 
 Duckworth will turn 50 in March. She and her husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, have a daughter, Abigail O'kalani Bowlsbey, who was born in November 2014. Their second child, a girl, is due in April. 
 
 “It’s a terrible thing, but I’m listed as a geriatric mother,” she said with a laugh. “It’s called a geriatric pregnancy on all of my medical charts. I don’t let that bother me though. I think 50-year-old moms are the new 40-year-old moms.” 
 
 Duckworth will be the first woman to give birth while serving in the U.S. Senate, though not the first to do so while serving in Congress. 
 
 U.S. Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, D-Calif., whose daughter was born in 1973, was the first woman to give birth as a member of Congress. U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash, has had three children since being elected to Congress in 2004. 
 
 Kirsten Gillibrand gave birth to a son in 2008, while serving as a U.S. representative for New York’s 20th Congressional District. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2009. 
 
 Duckworth, herself, had her first child while she was serving in the U.S. House. 
 
 “I feel great,” she said. “I was just able to go on a congressional delegation to Korea and Japan. I went up to the (Demilitarized Zone) and had lots of good meetings about the threat of war with North Korea and came home to a major policy speech at Georgetown (University) on North Korea and nuclearization and went right into this (government) shutdown fight. 
 
 “You’ve got to keep working,” she said. “But I’m healthy. I’m well-monitored, and the doctors say I’m doing just fine.” 
 
 Duckworth lost both legs in 2004 during the Iraq War when the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. 
 
 She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016 after representing Illinois’ 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms. She also served as assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. 
 
 In September, Duckworth wrote an op-ed for Cosmopolitan, advocating for more lactation rooms in airports and outlining the bipartisan legislation she introduced to make that happen. I asked her whether parenting changes the way she legislates. 
 
 “It does shape the way I represent the people of Illinois and the nation,” she said. “I think back to when I was deployed to Iraq and what it was like for people to leave their children and babies. I know women who left 8-week-old infants. This trip to Japan and Korea was seven days, and it’s the longest I’ve been away from my daughter, and it was horrible. 
 
 “Abigail just turned 3, and we’re talking about preschool,” she continued. “I think about people who don’t have options for preschool. All of these things start to really change my priorities and my focus. I’ve always been supportive of all these issues, but I live them every day now. It’s very humbling.” 
 
 I asked her how it will feel to be the first woman to give birth while serving in the U.S. Senate. 
 
 “Well, it’s about damn time,” she said. “I can’t believe it took until 2018. It says something about the inequality of representation that exists in our country. 
 
 “Men have been having children while they’ve been in office,” she said. “I hope if anything comes out of the Women’s March, it’s that we get more and more women running for office. It would be good to have some company here.” 
 
 hstevens@chicagotribune.com 
 
 Twitter @heidistevens13 
 
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 Tammy Duckworth is pregnant; will be 1st senator to give birth 
 
 Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is pregnant and will become the first sitting U.S. senator to give birth. Duckworth is with her daughter, Abigail, during a ceremonial swearing in by Vice President Joe Biden on Jan. 3, 2017. | AP file photo 
 
 WASHINGTON — In the history of the nation, only 10 members of Congress have given birth while in office and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is one of them. 
 
 Soon Duckworth will be in a class by herself. 
 
 Duckworth told me she is expecting her second child, another girl, in late April, a few weeks after she turns 50. The birth will make Duckworth the nation’s first senator to have a baby while serving in the chamber. 
 
 Wanted to share some exciting personal news… pic.twitter.com/ZZyu9pG2nq — Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) January 23, 2018 
 
 Sen. Dick Durbin D-Ill., said in a statement, “I am proud to have her as my Illinois colleague and prouder still that she will make history by being the first U.S. Senator to have a baby while in office. I couldn’t be happier for her.” 
 
 The other congressional births have all come while the female lawmakers were serving in the House. 
 
 “I feel great,” said Duckworth, a little over six months pregnant. 
 
 We talked in Duckworth’s Hart Building Senate office, a few days after she returned from a five-day official trip to Japan and South Korea. 
 
 It was the longest she has been away from Abigail, she said. Her daughter was born Nov. 18, 2014, when Duckworth was 47 and a member of the House. 
 
 Many of you are familiar with Duckworth’s story. She is a retired lieutenant colonel who served a total of 23 years in the Illinois Army National Guard. Duckworth lost her legs and shattered her right arm when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq on Nov. 12, 2004. 
 
 She initially won the Illinois’ 8th Congressional District seat in November 2012. 
 
 Duckworth and her husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, tried various fertilization methods over a period of years before Abigail O’kalani Bowlsbey was conceived through a form of in vitro fertilization. 
 
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 After Abigail’s cesarean birth, Duckworth had to wait 18 months to try again. “I’ve had multiple IVF cycles and a miscarriage trying to conceive again, so we’re very grateful,” she said. 
 
 The miscarriage occurred in 2016 during her Senate campaign, Duckworth revealed. 
 
 Duckworth became the second female U.S. senator elected from the Illinois when she was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2017. 
 
 Duckworth decided to run for the Senate while on maternity leave with Abigail. “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 said. 
 
 Getting pregnant a second time was, she said, “a struggle.” Her fertility specialist for both pregnancies is Dr. Edmond Confino at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. 
 
 There are now 22 women in the Senate, a record number. In this current crop, the mothers among them had their kids before entering Congress, with the exceptions Duckworth and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who had one of her two sons while in the House. 
 
 Becoming a mother — one who commutes between Washington and Hoffman Estates — influenced Duckworth’s legislative agenda. 
 
 “I have a better understanding in a way that I didn’t have,” Duckworth said. Before her baby, Duckworth was familiar with issues facing nursing mothers. Just how tough it could be was underscored when “I was the one who was trying to pump breast milk in airports.” 
 
 Since Abigail was born, Duckworth has authored measures to make sure major airports offer places for breastfeeding mothers to pump milk; the military creates a uniform policy for giving personnel time to bond with their newborn and adopted babies; and to make sure student parents have on-campus child care. 
 
 She also is a sponsor or co-sponsor of bills dealing with affordable child care, paid parental leave and other infant and maternal health issues. 
 
 Duckworth’s mother, who lives with her, is key to helping the senator balance work and family life. Her mom travels back and forth to Illinois with her daughter and granddaughter. 
 
 Even with her mom and a nanny for backup, Duckworth said there is “the constant feeling of guilt when I’m not with her.” 
 
 Born in Thailand, Duckworth wants Abigail to speak Thai, so she hired an au pair who is certified as a teacher in Thailand. 
 
 “My mom and nanny speak to her in Thai and I speak to her in a combination of Thai and English,” Duckworth said. 
 
 Duckworth related that Abigail once asked her, “’Mommy can’t you stay home from work today and play with me?’ . . . What do I say to a 2-year-old? ‘No, Mommy has to go make sure our Department of Defense has the budget it needs.'” 
 
 Does Abigail know what a senator does? 
 
 “No,” Duckworth said, adding, “the cutest thing, every time she sees a picture of the U.S. Capitol, even if it’s on a dollar bill, she says ‘Mommy’s office.’ And I have to say, ‘Well, it’s not quite Mommy’s office, but in a way you’re right.’ ” 
 
 Three of the 10 House women went on to serve in the Senate: Duckworth, Kirsten Gillibrand and Blanche Lambert Lincoln. 
 
 Duckworth will become the first sitting senator to give birth. 
 
 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers gave birth to three children while in Congress, the most of any sitting lawmaker. 
 
 The Women Who Gave Birth While Serving in Congress 
 
 • Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, D-Calif. 
 
 • Rep. Susan Molinari, R-N.Y. 
 
 • Rep. Blanche Lambert Lincoln, D-Ark. 
 
 • Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz, R-Utah 
 
 • Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif. 
 
 • Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D. 
 
 • Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. 
 
 • Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. 
 
 • Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash. 
 
 • Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. 
 
 FOOTNOTE: Here is the House of Representatives official list of “Familial Connections of Women Representatives and Senators in Congress.”
– Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the first disabled woman to serve in the House and the first Asian-American member of Congress from Illinois, is on course to chalk up another first: She's six months pregnant with her second child, which will make her the first senator to give birth while in office. Her daughter, Abigail, was born while she was serving in the House in 2014. Duckworth, an Iraq veteran who lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down, will be 50 in March. She says getting pregnant a second time was a "struggle" that involved multiple IVF cycles and a miscarriage during her 2016 Senate campaign, but she "feels great," the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Another nine women have given birth while serving in the House, including GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who had three children while serving. Duckworth, who recently returned from a trip to Asia, tells the Chicago Tribune that being a mother has helped shape the way she legislates. "I think back to when I was deployed to Iraq and what it was like for people to leave their children and babies. I know women who left 8-week-old infants," the Democrat says. "This trip to Japan and Korea was seven days, and it's the longest I've been away from my daughter, and it was horrible." Asked how she feels about becoming the first senator to give birth, she said: "Well, it's about damn time. I can't believe it took until 2018. It says something about the inequality of representation that exists in our country." (In 2014, Nancy Pelosi refused to let Duckworth vote by proxy when she was unable to travel because of pregnancy.)