The title of “Mom” may now be added to the list of achievements that Tara Lipinski has achieved.
The Olympic gold medal winner, age 41, who is most known for making history at the 1998 Winter Olympics reveals to PEOPLE that she and her husband Todd Kapostasy, age 40, have just became parents to a girl named Georgie who was delivered via a surrogate. Georgie was born recently.
“I dreamed about this for such a long time,” she says on a bright day in her living room as Georgie snoozes nearby. “I couldn’t be more excited.” She can’t wait to experience all the joys that come with becoming a mother to a baby. A baby that won’t stop screaming, restless nights. Even when I tell myself, “Okay, take an hour nap,” I can’t help but be too enthusiastic. I’m like, ‘She’s there,’ you guys. Just keep an eye on her for a little longer.
Lipinski continues by saying, “it’s the best tired I’ve ever been.” She tied the knot with Kapostasy, a producer and director, in 2017, and the couple can’t help but take stock of their present pleasure, which is something they worried may never come to pass.
After a five-year battle with infertility that included numerous excruciating losses, Lipinski and her partner finally became pregnant with Georgie. Lipinski describes her as “so calm and peaceful.” Lipinski was left feeling shattered and alone as a result of it all, and it wasn’t until August that she and Kapostasy started their emotional new podcast Unexpecting. “For such a long time, I felt as if no one saw or heard me. “I was sick of hoarding everything,” she explains.
The former athlete, who now works for NBC as a sportscaster with Johnny Weir, has said that her struggle with infertility has taught her a valuable lesson. “It made me realize that sometimes life is just not fair,” according to her. “For such a long time, I thought, ‘Oh, you get a win, you get a loss, everything evens out.'” When I was a skater, I was able to push myself more in practice. When it comes to infertility, however, there are several factors over which you have no control.
After many years of unsuccessful attempts to have a child, Lipinski, who has endometriosis, and Kapostasy came to the realization that there was a problem with her reproductive immunology that caused her body to reject their created egg. “I went through four pregnancies, four miscarriages, four D&Cs [dilation and curettage, an often painful procedure to remove pregnancy tissue from the uterine lining],” explains the woman.
Following the occurrence of her most recent miscarriage, “It was like, ‘Okay Tara, you’ve put your body through enough,'” she said. After that, I made the decision to consider some alternative possibilities.
She developed an immediate connection with her surrogate Mikayla, who got pregnant in the early part of this year with one of the couple’s fertilized eggs. During the time when Georgie was being born, “I was playing Dave Matthews’ song “You and Me,” and I couldn’t control the tears that were falling down my face. The delivery of the baby happened next, at which point she felt an incredible sense of relief. “I felt like I could breathe again.”
Despite the fact that her marriage suffered as a result of the years of battle, Lipinski may now even find beauty in that fact. “It gave us time to figure out how to support each other,” she adds of the apostasy that occurred during their time together. “I would have given everything for us to have been able to avoid going through all of this. But at this point, I can’t see it going any other way.