Maria Menounos is a mom!
The journalist and her husband Keven Undergaro’s first child arrived on June 23 via surrogate after a decade of fertility struggles and a pancreatic cancer battle.
The new parents named their baby girl Athena.
“It was the most special moment of my life,” Menounos told Us Weekly Wednesday. “The doctor literally grabbed her and hiked her onto me. I sat with her on my chest, and Keven and I kept looking at each other like, ‘Oh, my God.’ It was just pure joy.”
The 45-year-old revealed in February that she and Undergaro, 55, were expecting a baby.
“We are overjoyed to share that we are finally gonna be parents,” she wrote via Instagram at the time, thanking Family Match Consulting for its help — as well as Zoe Saldana and Kim Kardashian, who have also used surrogates.
While sharing the news on “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” Menounos recalled trying “everything” with Undergaro in their lengthy attempt to start a family.
“They’ve tried to get me pregnant. That didn’t work,” she told viewers. “Keven had a surgery. That didn’t work. He hung me up like a chicken. That didn’t work.”
The former “Extra” host joked, “Dad, close your ears.”
Later that same month, Menounos revealed she had battled — and beat — pancreatic cancer while awaiting her baby girl.
Menounos, who hid her diagnosis from her surrogate, first spoke about her family plans when she froze her eggs to avoid “problems down the line.”
The couple had embryos made before tying the knot in December 2017.
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“Now I’m realizing I have kids in a freezer,” she told Health magazine in a 2016 cover story. “It makes it real when you know the sex.”
Although the “Better Together” host inadvertently convinced fans that she had a baby on the way in 2018 when she talked about moving to Nashville for her family’s “kid phase,” she clarified at the time that plans were still “in progress.”
Menounos explained, “Not pregnant yet! … We will share good news when we can.”
When she did post about her surrogate’s bun in the oven, the TV correspondent wrote via Instagram that she felt “so overwhelmed by all the messages of love and joy” she received on social media.
