Tara Lipinski and daughter Georgie.Photo:Jenny Quicksall Photography
Jenny Quicksall Photography
After a years-long fertility battle thegold medal-winning figure skater, 41, has welcomed daughter Georgievia surrogate. And while she never pictured surrogacy as part of herroad to motherhood, Lipinski says it changed her life for the better.
“I loved the surrogacy journey, I really did,” says Lipinski, who, with the support of husbandTodd Kapostasy, 40, looked into the fertility option after experiencingfour painful miscarriages. “I had so much trauma around pregnancy,” she shares. “Something just clicked where my outlook changed and it became less about me and my experience. It wasn’t about the pregnancy anymore.”
When they were matched with a surrogate named Mikayla last year, “there was an immediate connection,” she says, of their initial phone call. “It was just one of those moments where you’re like, this is my kind of person.”
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Tara Lipinski and daughter Georgie.Jenny Quicksall Photography
Lipinski says Mikayla helped soothe her fears about the process. “Someone like me, I love control. There’s a lot of things that wouldn’t make me the perfect match for surrogacy. But after this experience, my mind is blown.”
During Georgie’s birth, “It was me Todd and Mikayla in the room,” she describes. “I’m holding her hand and she’s crying and I’m sobbing. If I thought we were bonded before…she is my family now and vice versa.”
Looking back on it all, “We’re in awe and we’re just grateful,” she says. “These five years have changed me in ways that I’ll never get pieces of me back, which I’m okay with. I am proud that I got through it. It wasn’t always easy and I had to do it my own way.”
As for Georgie, “She’s just as cute as a button and I can’t stop staring at her,” says Lipinski. “Everything just feels emotional and surreal.”
For more on Tara Lipinski’s road to motherhood, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, available Friday.
source: people.com
