Maria Menounos welcomes ‘miracle baby’ after 10 years of infertility struggles and pancreatic cancer

Maria Menounos is finally, officially a mom! After more than a decade of trying to have a baby, the television personality revealed that she and her husband, Keven Undergaro, welcomed their first child, a daughter, last month.

“It was the most special moment of my life,” Menounos tells Us Weekly exclusively. “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.”

“It was like Christmas morning times a million,” Undergaro added.

Menounos first announced she was expecting her daughter, named Athena, via surrogate earlier this year.

“We are so grateful to the beautiful family helping us conceive our baby,” Menounos tells People, explaining that she and her husband worked with surrogacy company Family Match Consulting. In a video shared to PEOPLE’s website, Menounos and her father, Constantinos, can be seen watching an ultrasound video and getting emotional.

Related: Maria Menounos opens up about surrogacy struggles: ‘We’re trying so hard’

In 2020, Menounos announced that she and her husband, Keven Undergaro, were trying to have a baby via surrogate. Around that time, both of her parents were battling COVID-19 (her mother was also battling brain cancer simultaneously at the time). Sadly, she lost her mother in May 2021.

In January of this year, Menounos was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

After spending the last three months healing from life-saving surgery, Menounos is ready to talk about her diagnosis. After learning she had stage 2 pancreatic cancer, Menounos underwent a successful surgery to remove a 3.9-cm. tumor. She says she’s now made it her mission to encourage others to seek answers to their health problems and listen to their bodies.

“I need people to know there are places they can go to catch things early,” she says. “You can’t let fear get in the way. I had that moment where I thought I was a goner—but I’m okay because I caught this early enough.”

Related: ‘Dexter’ actress Jamie Chung says she chose surrogacy to protect her career

Two years ago, Menounos opened up about the unexpected roadblocks she kept hitting on the surrogacy journey—after nearly two years of working with one surrogate, she and her husband found out the surrogate was medically incompetent to carry the couple’s baby.

“I thought, you know, we’d have the surrogacy thing down. We’d be implanted by now. We’d have all this excitement and that just keeps not working,” Menounos said at the time.

Well, now she and Undergaro can rejoice in their happiness, because they’re finally parents.

“It’s euphoric,” Menounos says about finally being a mom. “For so long, I’ve felt something’s been missing. I’d go to kids’ birthday parties, and I’d be a little sad because I wanted my own family. And now I feel so grounded, like I finally know where I belong.”