Peta Murgatroyd & Maks Chmerkovskiy Share The First Photo & Name Of Their Baby Boy
Peta Murgatroyd and Maks Chmerkovskiy welcomed their second child together on Father’s Day after suffering three miscarriages.
Peta Murgatroyd, 36, and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, 43, have shared the first photo of their new bundle of joy! In a joint Instagram post shared on Wednesday, June 21, the Dancing with the Stars pros shared a photo of their newborn son lying on a white comforter dressed in beige clothing and a matching hat. “Rio John Chmerkovskiy,” they began in the caption, revealing their second child’s name. They then confirmed his birth date as June 18 and revealed he was born at 8 lbs., 6 oz. “We are overjoyed to share our baby boy with all of you,” the proud parents continued. They also shouted out their 6-year-old son, Shai. “@shai.aleksander is already the best big brother and we all feel very complete,” they raved. “Life is good XO”.
Peta and Maks revealed that Rio’s middle name is a tribute to his late grandfather, Peta’s father, who died in Dec. 2022, while speaking to PEOPLE on June. 21. As for his first name, they simply wanted something, well, simple. “We loved Rio, which we came upon at the last minute. It’s a perfect complement to our long surname!” they explained. “We also wanted something easy to say with Shai.”
Maks revealed Peta had gone into labor by sharing a blurry photo of them in the hospital to his feed on June 18. “It’s go time!” he exclaimed in the caption of the photo, which showed him holding his wife’s hand as she grinned from the hospital bed. “@petamurgatroyd is the fantastic unicorn that she is and I can’t wait for another one of her best creations! She is an absolutely amazing boy mom and about to birth another lucky man into this world,” he gushed. “Wish us luck. Happy tears. I can’t wait.”
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Later that day, the professional dancer confirmed that Peta gave birth on Father’s Day by sharing a photo of himself holding his newborn. Rio’s face was blurred out, but his was crystal clear and radiated pride as he looked down at his son. “Happy Father’s Day to me!” he captioned the post.
Peta announced her pregnancy in January after suffering multiple miscarriages. “It brings me immense joy to finally announce that @maksimc and I are expecting our Chmerkovskiy #2,” she captioned a pic of her her growing baby bump. “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,” she continued. “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.”
The Peta Jane Beauty founder revealed that she was pregnant during 2022’s Dancing with the Stars season, but didn’t actually test herself until the season had concluded. “I think it was the fastest positive I’ve ever seen in my life,” she gushed to PEOPLE in January. “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.”