Peta Murgatroyd and Maks Chmerkovskiy are ready to tell the world that they are expecting a second baby after a heartbreaking infertility journey and three lost pregnancies. The Dancing With The Stars couple are already 18 weeks along and seem over the moon that they’ll have a sibling for their 5-year-old son, Shai.
And, Peta says, she’s expecting without the help of interventions.
“All natural, it happened,” she told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant for so long until I was really feeling sick. I danced through Dancing with the Stars with it. I started feeling weird, started feeling a little bit sick and a little bloated and I didn’t want to test for weeks.”
She also posted her announcement on Instagram.
“It brings me immense joy to finally announce that @maksimc and I are expecting our Chmerkovskiy #2 ❤️,” she wrote. “After 2 years of constant struggle and heartache, 3 miscarriages and a failed embryo transfer… we have a healthy bun in the oven :)) It was a shock to all of us and we found out right before I was going in for my second round of IVF.”
She also thanked everyone for going on the journey with her.
“I want to thank ALL OF YOU who’ve been on this fertility journey with me from the beginning. It feels like I’m sharing this news with my extended family. Thank you for sharing your stories and tips to get me through my IVF cycle and thank you for the plethora of encouraging comments and DM’s … I read them all. This news has brought extraordinary bliss to our family and we have so much to be grateful for 🙏🏻…. coming June 2023.”
The baby was so unexpected that she says she didn’t even test for six or seven weeks, after all of the heartache they had been through trying to conceive.
“I think it was the fastest positive I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said. “It just came up super quick and I was just shocked. It’s been completely different from my past pregnancy. It wasn’t like I jumped for joy and I shouted from the rooftops, ‘Oh my God, I’m pregnant. Yay!’ It was more like a, ‘Okay, well let’s see what happens because I’ve been through this four other times, and it hasn’t worked.’ So I was very skeptical. I didn’t even tell Maks for a while.”
Murgatroyd has been incredibly open and candid about her infertility journey, sharing transplant videos and IVF treatments on her social media as well as talking to the media about having three devastating miscarriages over the course of two years.
“I promised you all that I would be open and honest,” she said back in August, “I had times where I was unsure of that decision throughout my IVF journey and even more so after we got the news that our transfer did not work. But going back on my word after being such an open book wouldn’t be right.”
She also did her first IVF injections on camera.
“Let’s normalize the conversations surrounding miscarriages and IVF and create an environment that is more comfortable for all women,” she wrote in the caption.
Huge congratulations to the entire family — can’t wait to see baby pictures this summer.
