Tara Lipinski and husband Todd Kapostasy are expecting their first child via surrogacy following their five-year infertility journey.
During Thursday’s episode of the couple’s “Unexpecting” podcast, they discussed the moment their surrogate, Mikayla, told them the happy news.
“I was just sobbing,” Lipinski recalled. “Like that ugly sobbing of years of all of this trauma pouring out of my eyes.”
While the pair knew Mikayla was pregnant, it wasn’t until doctors confirmed that the little one had a heartbeat that the excitement truly settled in.
“I guess I don’t know how to describe it other than just pure relief,” the Olympian, 41, continued. “And obviously happiness and thinking that maybe our lives are going to finally change and we aren’t going to be in the same awful hamster wheel anymore.”
After learning they were going to become parents, the duo took a trip up to Malibu, Calif., to celebrate.
“We were on the deck of this house looking at the Pacific Ocean and the sun is setting and we are like, ‘We are pregnant with a kid,'” Kapostasy said. “It just felt like this end — it’s not the end obviously — but in a way it felt like this crazy almost cliché end of a movie where the sun was finally setting on our horrific fertility journey.”
In the past five years, the figure skater — who was diagnosed with endometriosis — has suffered four miscarriages, six failed transfers, eight retrievals and undergone numerous different medical procedures.
Despite the heartache, she and her filmmaker husband, 39, agreed that those experiences have only made their “bond” stronger.
Not only has it brought the couple closer, but the parents-to-be have also developed a “magical” relationship with their surrogate.
“There was an immediate connection and bond between us, one I just didn’t expect to feel so strongly. Two peas in a pod type of feeling … teammates on the deepest level,” Lipinski said of Mikayla.
“She’s been able to give me reassurance and make the journey as good as it can be, especially for someone who has been through a lot of trauma,” she continued.
Even though the women don’t live in the same state, the gold medalist said they “speak every single day.”
“We’ve now become close friends and we’ve created this beautiful connection that I didn’t expect going into this,” she added.
Lipinski also shared the exciting news on her Instagram, telling her followers that they gave one of their “own biological, genetic embryos” to their surrogate.
“Our bun, her oven,” she wrote on Wednesday. “We matched with a heaven sent surrogate, Mikayla, and we received a positive pregnancy test.”
Lipinski and Kapostasy, who wed in 2017, started their podcast this summer in an effort to shed light on their tumultuous journey to parenthood.
Throughout the series, the two have gotten candid about all the heartbreaking moments that led up to this point, including the moment Lipinski found out she lost her unborn child during a gestational scan in 2020.
After keeping their pregnancy struggles a secret, the pair decided they wanted to normalize IVF and infertility with the podcast.
Lipinski and Kapostasy started dating in May 2015 and got engaged just seven months later.
