Tara Lipinski
She speaks for the first time about her tragic miscarriages
Tara Lipinski
© Ben Hider / Getty Images
Former figure skater Tara Lipinski has had some very difficult years: she suffered four miscarriages while trying to have children. Now she speaks for the first time about the traumatic experiences.
Tara Lipinski, 41, was already on the ice as a child and is now one of the most famous athletes of all time. After all, she broke some records: In 1997, the former figure skater became the youngest world champion at the age of 14 and a year later the youngest Olympic champion ever. A little later she ended her sporting career, but continued to appear in ice revues and also tried her hand at acting.
In 2017, the figure skating legend married her great love, producer Todd Kapostasy. Since then, the two have been trying to start a family. Now Lipinski is making her infertility public in an interview with “People” and reports on the terrible strokes of fate that have befallen her in recent years.
Tara Lipinski: “I was so overwhelmed and I struggled day after day”
“Growing up as an Olympic athlete, I was in the spotlight and sharing my life publicly from a young age,” she told People. However, she had previously not been able to share her infertility with the public. “It’s been five years of my life and my husband’s life that I haven’t talked about it. I just wasn’t up to it emotionally and mentally. I was so overwhelmed and struggling day in and day out that I wasn’t able to involve other people,” she continues.
However, it is important for her to share her experiences now, as infertility is very “isolating”. While one would keep hearing stories about surrogacy and IVF (in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination), but the “deeper details” are often missing. Therefore, she now wants to establish a “connection to women” with her own story.
“Every waking moment was somehow about fertility”
“I was so focused on my career and my work and I met my husband a bit later in life that I never really thought about the next steps,” she says, adding:
I always knew I wanted to be a mother. I just didn’t think there was a time limit for that.
When she then wanted to realize her desire to have children, she finally encountered difficulties. She then started IVF treatments and was initially positive. But the path became more and more rocky, infertility took up her entire life: “Every waking moment was somehow about fertility and the next appointment and the next doctor, the next cycle and the grief and loss, it was never ending journey.”
Tara Lipinski at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics
© Kosecki / imago images
Tara Lipinski had four miscarriages
During their trip, Tara Lipinski and her husband faced “almost every obstacle” that is possible with regard to artificial insemination. “In the last five years, I’ve had 24 anesthetics, four miscarriages, four D&Cs [Dilatation und Kürettage: Ausschabung der Gebärmutterschleimhaut, Anmerkung der Redaktion]six failed transfers, eight retractions and was diagnosed with endometriosis, which led to two major surgeries,” reveals the ex-athlete, making the extent of her ordeal clear. The 41-year-old further emphasizes:
My low point was last summer when I had two miscarriages in a row. One miscarriage was heartbreaking, but by four, I felt like a shell of myself. After the second miscarriage, I stopped crying. There were no more tears. I just felt numb.
But not only the miscarriages weighed heavily on the Olympian, also the failed ones Embryo transfer attempts have always been accompanied by immense sadness. Despite the hard times, Lipinski never gave up hope: “My urge to become a mother got me through it and kept me alive. I never wished for anything else.”
In a joint podcast “Unexpected”Tara and her husband Todd now want to share their story to enlighten – and “to heal a little bit.”
Source used: people.com