Maria Menounos could not have been more excited that after ten years of trying, she and her husband Keven Undergaro were finally expecting their first baby together via surrogacy, which she first announced in February.
She announced the news during an appearance on Live! with Kelly and Ryan – before it was Live! with Kelly and Mark – and though she appeared overjoyed, and she certainly was, by that point, she already knew that she was secretly battling cancer, which she recently revealed in an interview with People.
Just one month before making the announcement of her first baby, a girl, the television personality learned of her Stage 2 pancreatic cancer diagnosis, after getting a full-body MRI with emerging wellness brand Prenuvo.
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And not only was she aware of her terrifying diagnosis, she was already feeling its symptoms, which nearly foiled her plans to announce her special baby news on live television.
Speaking on the Today Show with Hoda Kotb following news of her cancer battle – she is now completely cancer free – Maria recalled almost having to cancel her appearance because of the pain she was feeling.
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"We have to take this step by step," she remembers thinking with her husband, and she said: "Then came the time to go and announce the baby…"
She recalled: "As I was driving to the airport, I had so much pain that I turned around, and I said, 'I can't do this,' and I told the folks at Live! with Kelly, I said, 'I'm not really feeling well, let's see how it goes.'"
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However, trying to feel better, she said she then told her husband: "We gotta shift this energy, we have to be excited for this baby."
Maria – who has been with her husband Keven for over 20 years and married him with a surprise TV wedding on New Year's Eve in 2017 – first opened up to People earlier this year about her and her husband's struggle in attempting to expand their family, which took them nearly a decade.
Though she says this year has been full of "trauma, stress, crisis," she now can finally focus on her baby girl, coming this June. "I'm so grateful and so lucky," she told the outlet.
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