Tara Lipinski gets candid about her journey with infertility.
In the first episode of her new podcast Tara Lipinski: UnexpectedOlympic figure skater, 41, admitted she never thought pregnancy would be a struggle for her as a former athlete.
“I wasn’t educated, there wasn’t a single moment that someone said this to me that I even thought about it,” she told husband Todd Kapostasy about her infertility struggles. “Or to plant a seed in my brain to think about the fertility timeline and the biological clock.”
“You kind of heard, ‘Oh, your biological clock is ticking,’ and that’s the only thing I feel like I’ve ever heard that might make me think there’s a timeline,” she continued. “I also felt like I exercise, I work on my muscles, I hydrate, I was an elite athlete at one point in my life. I eat healthy and I just thought, ‘Oh, maybe these things are connected,’ and that’s not necessarily true.”
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Lipinski went on to remark that it was “crazy” that she thought getting pregnant wouldn’t be difficult.
“It’s crazy that I just thought, ‘Oh, I’m an athlete, this should be easy,'” she recalled. “I got so used to my body working for me. My body didn’t fail me most of my life until it did.”
The athlete spoke to PEOPLE earlier this month, opening up about why she now “finally feels ready” to share her story.
“I grew up as an Olympic athlete and was in the spotlight and sharing my life publicly at a very young age,” she explained. “This was just the first time in my life — and it’s been going on for so long — that I felt like I was living this lie or living with this big secret.”
“Five years of my life and my husband’s life went by without me talking about it. I just wasn’t emotionally or mentally capable. I was so overwhelmed and struggling day in and day out that I wasn’t in a place to bring other people in and that thought really scared me.”
Despite being devastated, Lipinski knew it was important to share her story. “I knew all along that I really, really wanted to talk about my story because infertility in itself is so isolating. I think we hear so many more stories about IVF now and we know that people are using surrogates and we hear this all-encompassing view of it. But never you don’t hear those deep details. And I think when I started this journey, that’s all I wanted — to connect with women.”
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Source: HIS Education