Tara Lipinski has shared a heartbreaking update: her surrogate experienced a pregnancy loss while carrying the couple's second child. The Olympic gold medalist announced the news in a May 1 Instagram post, explaining that the loss occurred in the second trimester.
“A few months ago, we lost our baby in the second trimester,” Lipinski, 43, wrote alongside a photo of a heart-shaped box. “We’ve been on our second surrogacy journey for two years now. Our first surrogate, who carried our daughter Georgie, wasn’t medically cleared to proceed with our sibling journey. I grieved that ending and we started over.”
Lipinski and husband Todd Kapostasy are parents to 2-year-old Georgie, born in 2023. The figure skater described the extended struggle: “From the long road in finding a surrogate, to medical clearance setbacks, to a failed transfer, and now this loss… it hasn’t been an easy road.”
She expressed deep gratitude for both surrogates, stating she will “forever be connected” to them. “I feel incredibly lucky for the woman who carried our baby (our angel) who will always hold such a special place in my heart,” she continued. “And for our first surrogate, who has continued to support me from afar through this second journey.”
Lipinski has been candid about her own five-year fertility battle, which included four miscarriages, 24 surgeries, eight egg retrievals, and six failed transfers. “Being confronted with so much loss and grief and failure constantly, it really took us a long time to get a win,” she told E! News in June 2024. “So you just feel like you're repetitively getting hit and knocked down. And it's like, how do you just get back up and try again?”
The athlete has become an advocate for infertility awareness, recently traveling to Capitol Hill to discuss making IVF more accessible. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz shared on Facebook after meeting Lipinski: “It's clear that IVF is out of reach for too many. Congress must take up and pass my HOPE with Fertility Services Act to make IVF accessible and affordable.”
Though the announcement came months after the loss, Lipinski said her Washington trip motivated her to speak out. “I realized I had to do it,” she explained. “I was tearing up reading so many messages from women sharing their vulnerable stories and fears, I just knew now is the time.”