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A “Dancing With the Stars” couple shared big news with their fans on Friday, January 13. Pro dancers Peta Murgatroyd and Maksim Chmerkovskiy are pregnant with their second child, which is especially exciting for them after their miscarriages and struggles with secondary infertility.
Here’s what you need to know:
Peta Murgatroyd & Maksim Chmerkovskiy Were Shocked By the Pregnancy
In an Instagram post, Murgatroyd showed off her baby bump and revealed that after years of miscarriages and a failed IVF implantation, they wound up with a surprise pregnancy.
Murgatroyd wrote:
It brings me immense joy to finally announce that @maksimc and I are expecting our Chmerkovskiy #2.
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.
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 DMs… I read them all.
She finished by writing, “This news has brought extraordinary bliss to our family and we have so much to be grateful for… coming June 2023.”
Murgatroyd confirmed in an interview with People that the baby was conceived naturally, which was such a surprise after their infertility struggles.
Peta Was Unable to Attend Her Father’s Funeral Because of Being Pregnant
Earlier in the week before the baby announcement, Murgatroyd was teasing big news on her Instagram stories. In doing so, she did sadly say that she was unable to attend her father Derek’s funeral in person in Australia due to reasons related to her big news.
“Maks and I have some really exciting news that we’re gonna release on Friday. Something that we’ve been working on for a long time and it’s just really exciting. We’re really happy and just finally we can share it with you all … we’re going to be releasing some cool news,” said Murgatroyd.
She continued, “That’s happy news. On another note, I had my father’s funeral, Sunday night after Shai’s birthday party. That was beautiful and awful at the same time. I won’t go into detail ’cause I’ll start crying. Yeah, couldn’t get home due to some reasons which you’ll find out about.”
But hopefully Murgatroyd was able to celebrate the baby news in person when she went to visit her father in mid-December, which was the last time she saw him before he died on December 29.
Murgatroyd & Chmerkovskiy Have Been Very Open About Their Struggles to Have a 2nd Child
The couple has been open and candid in the past year about their struggles with secondary infertility — i.e., they were able to get pregnant but Murgatroyd miscarried three times in two years, she revealed to People in a June 2022 interview.
Then on July 2022, Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy shared with their fans that they were going to try in-vitro fertilization. After egg retrieval, they shared that they had viable embryos and were just awaiting implantation, but then on August 23, Murgatroyd wrote on Instagram that she went from “one of the happiest days of [her] life” on implantation day to “one of the saddest moments [she’ll] never forget” when she was told that the embryo transfer did not work.
Murgatroyd shared in an interview with People shortly after the transfer didn’t work that they were going to “just take a little break for a couple of months” before they try again.
Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy’s son Shai just turned 6 years old on January 4, and they also became an aunt and uncle to a new baby boy born to Chmerkovskiy’s brother Valentin and his wife Jenna Johnson, both of whom are also “Dancing With the Stars” pros. Johnson and Chmerkovskiy have not revealed the new baby’s name yet.