Tara Lipinski Recalls 'Crazy' Thought That Getting Pregnant Was 'Easy': 'I Was So Used to My Body Working'
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The athlete opens up about her infertility struggles on the first episode of her podcast, 'Tara Lipinski: Unexpecting'
Tara Lipinski is getting candid about her journey with infertility.
On the first episode of her new podcast Tara Lipinski: Unexpecting, the Olympic figure skater, 41, admitted she never thought getting pregnant would be a struggle for her as a former athlete.
"I wasn’t educated, there wasn’t ever a moment that someone brought this to me to even think about," she told husband Todd Kapostasy of struggling with infertility. "Or to drop a seed in my brain to think about a fertility timeline and a biological clock."
"You kind of heard, ‘Oh your biological clock is ticking,’ and that’s the only thing I feel like I ever heard that could remotely make me think that there was a timeline," she continued. "I also felt like I work out, I work 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 correlate,' and that’s not necessarily true."
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Lipinski went on to note how "crazy" it was that she thought getting pregnant wouldn't be too difficult.
"It’s crazy that I just thought, 'Oh I’m an athlete, this should be easy,' " she recalled. "I was so used to my body working for me. My body did not fail me for most of my life until it failed me."
The athlete spoke to PEOPLE earlier this month, opening up about why she now "finally felt ready" to share her story.
"I grew up as an Olympic athlete and at a very young age I was in the spotlight and sharing my life publicly," she explained. "This was just the first time in my life — and it's gone on for so long — that I felt like I was living this lie or living with this big secret."
"It's been five years of my life and my husband's life and not speaking about it. I just wasn't emotionally or mentally able to. I was so overwhelmed and struggling day-to-day that I wasn't in a place to bring other people in and that thought really scared me."
Despite being overwhelmed, Lipinski knew that it was important to share her story. "All along I knew 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 now about IVF and we know people use surrogates and we hear this overarching view of it. But you never 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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