Former Olympic athlete Tara Lipinski has revealed she has been trying to become a parent for five years without success
The 41-year-old former US figure skater opened up on her Instagram page to her 816,000 followers about the journey she has been on.
Tara and her husband, Todd Kapostasy, have launched their own podcast, entitled ‘Unexpecting’, and hope to raise awareness of infertility by discussing their struggle.
Tara said she decided to talk about what she has been through as she finally felt ready to open up.
She said, “Well, this will be quite the life update. I’ve been keeping a bit of a secret for the last five years, and that’s definitely been a strange feeling for me. I’ve always felt so comfortable sharing my life with all of you, so to have gone on this journey privately for half a decade has been isolating, to say the least.
“However, I needed that isolation to find a way to cope and to adapt to my new normal. I was overwhelmed and not emotionally or mentally ready to bring more people on board. My life turned upside down and became completely consumed by our heartbreaking and often devastating fertility journey.
“My husband and I have seemingly hit every roadblock imaginable from the moment we began this process in 2018, and since then, I have been under anaesthesia 24 times, have had four miscarriages, four D&C’s, six failed IVF transfers, eight retrievals and a diagnosis of endometriosis that led me to two major surgeries.
“It has been an excruciatingly painful journey that has been filled with loss and dealing with the grief that comes along with that. We are lucky to have the ability to make our own embryos, but pregnancy is another story.
“But I’m finally ready to talk about it, and my husband and I couldn’t think of a better way to tell our story than through a podcast the two of us have created together.”
Tara said the pair had been working on the idea of the podcast for a while and wanted to give an honest and open account.
She said, “Nothing will be off limits as I wanted to have the most candid conversations that we could – this is by far the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in my life. My hope is to truly bring more awareness to the world of IVF, pregnancy loss and couples struggling to build a family.
Most people have heard about IVF, but not often the cruel existence this forces upon its patients when things don’t go as planned. And many, many people are on this very same tumultuous rollercoaster.
“Infertility can be one of the loneliest clubs to be a part of, and my hope is by telling my story, we may help other couples going through similar journeys not feel so alone. I’m glad I have you guys along for the ride now.”
