Following all the trials and heartache leading up to this moment, Meghan McCain has a reason to smile. The 35-year-old co-host of The View just gave birth to a daughter on Sept. 28, 2020, the ABC talk show’s account announced. This marks the first child between Meghan and husband, controversial conservative commentator Ben Domenech, 38. With Meghan’s late father being a long-serving U.S. Senator and both of the infant girl’s parents highly involved in politics, Meghan and Ben named their bundle of joy Liberty Sage McCain Domenech.
Meghan revealed in March that she was expecting. “My husband Ben and I are blessed to find out I’m pregnant,” she said in a joyous post to her Instagram account. “Although this isn’t how I expected to announce my pregnancy, both we and our families are excited to share the news with you all.” Since Meghan became pregnant at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in America, she stated that she consulted with her doctors about the dangers of being pregnant in the middle of a pandemic. “They advised me that for the safety of our baby and myself, I should be extra vigilant about limiting the amount of people we come in contact with,” she said. “I’m fortunate that my employer, ABC, has allowed me and my co-hosts to work remotely.” Like many working women, Meghan has remained on the job throughout the pregnancy, not letting the pregnancy stop her from criticizing President Donald Trump or — in some cases — clashing with her fellow co-hosts.
“I am indebted to our producers and crew. I also want to acknowledge the heroes — the doctors, nurses, grocery and pharmacy workers, journalists, police officers, firemen, and military — who are on the front lines of this fight,” she added in the post announcing her pregnancy.
Meghan and Ben began their path to parenthood in 2019, but in an essay published in The New York Times, she revealed that she suffered a miscarriage. “I knew I was pregnant before I formally knew I was pregnant. My body told me in all the ways women are familiar with. It told me in the same ways that I was miscarrying,” she wrote. “I have had my share of public grief and public joy. I wish this grief — the grief of a little life begun and then lost — could remain private. I am not hiding anymore. My miscarriage was a horrendous experience, and I would not wish it upon anyone.”
Leading up to the birth of her child, Meghan did her best to keep the pregnancy out of the public eye. “Given that people write on photos I put up of my family that they’re glad my Dad [the late Sen. John McCain] got cancer and he’s in hell, I thought I would leave my unborn child out of the social media cess pool [sic] as much as possible,” she wrote in May. This statement came weeks after she confessed that she was already feeling anxiety over shedding her baby weight after giving birth. “One of my biggest fears coming back to the show…is what the media’s reaction will be to the weight that I gain being pregnant, and then if I don’t lose it fast enough.”