Maria Menounos Says She’s “Grateful to Be Alive” After Welcoming Baby Girl

Maria Menounos is basking in life with the newest member of her squad.

The 45-year-old took a moment to reflect on all she's overcome—including the removal of a benign brain tumor and a cancer diagnosis earlier this year—while giving followers an update on her first weeks as a mother to her and her husband Keven Undergaro's newborn daughter Athena.

"Hi friends! Motherhood is going great," Maria, who welcomed her baby girl via surrogate in June, wrote on Instagram on August 9. "Athena is an Angel. She's currently asleep on me as we get some morning light. I'm so in love it's crazy."

She also looked back on the many health and personal challenges she's overcome over the last six years. adding, "Mom gets a brain tumor, then me, two brain surgeries later," she noted, "then both my parents are hospitalized with covid, then I lost my mom, then I got diagnosed with type one diabetes, then a Neuro endocrine tumor on my pancreas…some other crazy stuff in between too."

Maria joked that her husband suggested she might "roll with the punches too well," and while she said she might someday "dig in deeper," she's currently feeling appreciative for what she has. 

"Right now just that list makes me so grateful to be alive and to have thrived," she concluded her post. "To be here to enjoy this beautiful little girl. Thank you god! Thank you st Nectarios and Panagia. I pray all of it is behind us and only great days ahead!"

And this isn't the only update the new mom has given about her now family of three. 

"Her first words were Mark and Kelly," Maria joked to Mark Consuelos while guest cohosting Live! With Mark and Kelly last month. "No, she is sleeping really well actually. She's amazing. She's such a good baby. We're just so overjoyed."

In fact, she also compared life with her "angel" to a kind of heaven on earth.

"It's like the greatest feeling in the world," Maria added on motherhood. "I never knew when my dad would be like, 'Maria, life is about kids and family,' and I was so busy with my career and running around. Now, I get it. It really is. This is just the greatest feeling in the world."