Michael Tullberg / Contributor
Tara Lipinski Welcomes Baby No. 1 via Surrogate After Infertility Battle: ‘I Dreamt About This’
Tara Lipinski has welcomed her first child via surrogate after a years-long battle with infertility.
The Olympic gold medalist, 41, told People exclusively that she and her husband, Todd Kapostasy, recently welcomed daughter Georgie in a moment the former competitive figure skater called a “dream.”
“I dreamt about this for so long,” she said in the interview, adding that she’s thrilled about all of the new joys of motherhood. “A crying baby, sleepless nights. Even when I’m like, ‘Okay, take an hour nap,’ I’m almost too excited. I’m like, ‘She’s there. Just watch her a little longer.’”
She and Todd, 39, a producer and director whom she wed in 2017, faced a five-year struggle with infertility that included four miscarriages. The couple’s infertility journey led Tara and Todd to start a podcast together called “Unexpecting” in August. “I felt so unseen, so unheard for so long. I was tired of not sharing,” she told People.
The former figure skater said her infertility battle, which also included four D&Cs (dilation and curettage), an often painful procedure to remove pregnancy tissue from the uterine lining, taught her a hard lesson.
“It made me realize that sometimes life is just not fair,” the athlete told the outlet. “For so long I thought, ‘Oh, you get a win, you get a loss, everything evens out.’ As a skater I was able to train harder, force it. But when it came to infertility, there’s things you can’t change.”
The gold medalist, who made history at the 1998 Olympics, also suffers from endometriosis, which is known to affect fertility. After her last miscarriage, “It was like, ‘Okay Tara, you’ve put your body through enough.’ That’s when I decided to think of other options.”
Tara described the moment she formed an instant connection with her surrogate Mikayla, who became pregnant with the couple’s first child earlier this year.
“[During Georgie’s birth] I was playing Dave Matthews‘ song ‘You and Me’ and I could not stop sobbing. Then the baby came out, and it was so much relief,” she said in the interview. “I felt like I could breathe again.”
Even though the years of hardships weren’t easy on her marriage, the Pennsylvania native told People it only made her bond with Todd stronger.
“It gave us time to figure out how to support each other,” she said of Todd. “I would have loved for us to not have gone through all this. But now, I can’t imagine it any other way.”
Tara added about being a new mom, “It’s the best tired I’ve ever been.”
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