Tara Lipinski is going to be a mom! The Olympic ice skater is expecting her first baby via surrogate after years of fertility issues.
Lipinski, 41, shared the exciting news on Tuesday, October 3, before diving deeper into the process with husband — and cohost — Todd Kapostasy on the Thursday, October 5, episode of their “Unexpecting” podcast.
“Episode 12 we made some pretty big moves. After our immune testing results we decided to take one of our own biological, genetic embryos 
and give it to a surrogate,” Lipinski wrote via Instagram on Tuesday. “We matched with a heaven sent surrogate Mikayla and we received a positive pregnancy test.”
The following day, the athlete — who married Kapostasy in 2017 — gave her Instagram followers more insight into her bond with the couple’s surrogate, sharing sweet text message exchanges about the process.
“A little on how it felt meeting Mikayla and starting the process of surrogacy. There was an immediate connection and bond between us, one I just didn’t expect to feel so strongly,” Lipinski captioned the screenshots, which she shared on Wednesday, October 4. “Two peas in a pod type of feeling … teammates on the deepest level.”
On Thursday’s episode of their podcast, both Lipinski and Kapostasy recalled the moment they received the FaceTime call from their doctor, who confirmed that the baby had a heartbeat.
“It was just so surreal. It couldn’t have been happening to us like we don’t get this news, this doesn’t happen to us. I almost didn’t believe it,” Lipinski shared. “I was just sobbing. But like, that ugly sobbing of just, like, years of all of this trauma … pouring out of my eyes.”
Kapostasy, for his part, remembered that while his wife was “bawling [her] eyes out,” he was “doing laps around our kitchen island” out of happiness. “It was like a touchdown celebration, going nuts,” he said.
The moment was certainly cause for celebration for Lipinski and Kapostasy, who created their “Unexpecting” podcast in order to help other couples struggling with infertility.
Lipinski got candid about her and Kapostasy’s heart-wrenching fertility journey in the podcast trailer, which dropped last month.
“Over the last five years, I have been under anesthesia 24 times. I’ve had four miscarriages, six failed IVF transfers, eight retrievals and a diagnosis of endometriosis that led to two major surgeries,” the gold medalist said in a voiceover, as emotional clips of home videos throughout the process flashed across the screen.
“I would’ve never guessed the amount of failures we would’ve had, the amount of loss, all the obstacles. It almost felt like a cruel joke,” she recalled. “I really hope that through telling our story, we make other couples feel less alone if they’re on a similar journey.”
