Tara Lipinski Says Her First Mother's Day with Daughter Brought Complex Feelings After Infertility Journey (Exclusive)

The Olympic figure skater — who's mom to baby Georgie — has joined health platform Roon to share her experience with other women on their own fertility journeys

Tara Lipinski’s 8-month-old daughter Georgie has given her new reason to celebrate.

The gold medal-winning figure skater, 41, welcomed her daughter with husband Todd Kapostasy via surrogate in October after a 5-year-long struggle with infertility, and she tells PEOPLE that celebrating her first Mother’s Day last month felt “surreal.”

“For so many years during our journey, it was always holidays when certain things would happen. It would be Todd and my anniversary or my birthday, and I found out I was having a miscarriage,” says Lipinski, who, prior to welcoming Georgie, lost four pregnancies. “It would be Mother's Day —  there were two — one where I had a D&C, and on another one, I found out [something] wasn’t right. So these holidays, for me, I would just want to not think about.”

Lipinski in total had four D&Cs — a surgical procedure often performed after a miscarriage during which the cervix is dilated so that abnormal tissue can be removed from the uterine lining, per Johns Hopkins Medicine — six failed IVF transfers and eight egg retrievals.

Her doctors eventually also diagnosed her with endometriosis, for which she had to have two major surgeries.

Related: Tara Lipinski Opens Up About Close Bond with Surrogate Mikayla: 'Teammates on the Deepest Level' (Exclusive)

Now, with daughter Georgie, the broadcaster says being able to celebrate her first Mother’s Day also featured emotions that were quite complex.

“I just remember thinking it felt strange because of the past. And I think there was also a part of me that was thinking of all the women that are still in the wait, that Mother's Day is still really hard for them,” she says. “So I felt those feelings, but I also just kept looking at [Georgie] and I just felt so proud of her that somehow she got here for us.”

Lipinski says Roon, a platform that contains expert answers to thousands of questions for those navigating fertility with short-form videos, is a resource she wishes was available to her during her own struggle.

“It’s just a place that you can go so there's no more rabbit holes and searching on Google, and that's where I was for years. You would go to these appointments, you'd come home, you'd have all these questions. You would think, 'Okay, I'm going to ask my doctor all these things,' but then you're overwhelmed in there, you get five minutes, and then you get home,” she recalls.

Related: Tara Lipinski Celebrates First Christmas with Daughter Georgie: 'Soaking Up the Moments That Make Life Good'

“I would sit on Google in these rabbit holes, searching every single combination of words and really just not getting trusted answers. I would end up on these Reddit pages at 3 a.m., and you're like, 'Well, okay, so is that it? But who's giving me this answer?'" Lipinski continues, referring to herself as a "one percenter" because her doctors couldn't figure out why she was experiencing such an onslaught of fertility issues.

The athlete was seemingly always left with endless questions and little to no answers, which is the gap Roon hopes to help bridge with its access to doctors and medical experts.

Plus, the platform also features real people with lived experiences like Lipinski, who hopes that her involvement will help “lessen the fear” of the unknown for other women.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“You're able to hear these women's stories and understand what it might be like. And when you're asking, 'How do you handle the [IVF] shots?' You can hear women say, 'Actually, it was really hard and this is how I handle it.' Or you hear women that are saying, 'You know what? I was so fearful of it. I did it once. It actually doesn't hurt,'" Lipinski says.

"You're just able to find a lot of peace of mind and information. And I think that that alone helps control anxiety," she adds. "I think if you ask anyone, the hardest part of going through an infertility journey is just the unknown.”

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.