Television host and actress Maria Menounos is finally seeing her parenting dreams become a reality. The Extra host is expecting her first child with her husband Keven Undergaro. The couple had been trying to conceive and grow their family since 2012.
The actress shared her exciting family news exclusively with PEOPLE and opened up about her journey to this point, expressing her gratitude for her surrogate and the family. “Just after a decade of trying everything, we are so grateful to the beautiful family helping us conceive our baby. Keven, my dad, and I are all beyond excited for this soul to come into our lives. What a blessing.”
The couple began IVF treatments in 2012 and has been open about the difficulties of their journey. Maria has shared last year, “I definitely didn’t think it was going to take this long. It’s been years. We’ve used different services, different people. It’s just been a very frustrating process.” Maria and Keven began looking into surrogacy in 2018 and the TV host reached out to Kim Kardashian for advice, as she has experience in using a surrogate. Kim welcomed her children Chicago and Psalm via surrogate in 2018 and 2019 respectively. “I was grateful that I had her to share and help me,” Maria said of Kim.
Unfortunately, Maria and Keven, a TV writer, learned in 2021 that their first surrogate wasn’t a match medically. “That was a really hard breakup because we had been together on the journey for almost two years. She was just so lovely and so amazing and very patient with us.” Maria explained, “There’s something called a mock cycle that my fertility doctor suggested because we only have two really good embryos and we want two kids. What would happen is the uterine lining wouldn’t grow to that last stage where you could safely implant and know that the embryo would stick. Had we not done [a mock cycle], we would’ve probably lost our only chances.”
Last February, Maria revealed they had found another surrogate and admitted, “I told [my doctors], ‘If it doesn’t work, I’m done. This is the last straw. If this doesn’t happen, it’s definitely not meant to be.’ I can’t go through this process again.” Luckily, it all worked out, and the entertainer is going to become a mother this year! Congratulations to Maria and Keven on this very exciting news.
Kate Fann (she/her) is the BabyNames.com celebrity blogger, as well as an established content writer, aspiring author, and social media expert. She has been featured in online publications such as Bolde, ManoByte, Medium, The Social Observer, and more. Kate has ghostwritten numerous romance novels and is currently working on publishing her own works in the Young Adult genre.
Kate lives in East Tennessee with her husband Casey and her two sons, Quinn and Noah. When she's not writing or scrolling Instagram, Kate can be found tasting delicious wines, playing with make-up, baking yummy treats, or hiking the beautiful Smoky Mountains.
