A January pancreatic cancer diagnosis shook Maria Menounos and husband Keven Undergaro to the core this year. It should have been the happiest time of their lives, as the couple is awaiting the birth of their daughter via surrogate. But instead, Maria said she was focused on creating a plan for how Keven would raise their child on his own.
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Maria opened up in a new interview with 'People'
She evidently got her shocking diagnosis shortly after learning that their surrogate was pregnant. "I was like, 'How could God finally bless me with a baby and then take me before I get to meet her?'" she recalled. "I guttural cried, it was so intense."
Maria immediately went into planning mode and tried to figure out what her husband should do if the worst came to be.
She told her husband he would need to relocate to have help with their daughter
The 44-year-old said she sat Keven down and had a hard conversation about what would come next. "'If something happens, here are the people I want her around and what I want you to do. You'll probably have to move back east to be with my dad so that she has him.' We talked about all of it. We imagined the worst," she explained.
Normally, the two are pretty good in a crisis, but Maria said this really tested them.
The 'Heal Squad' podcast host kept her head up
Maria never bothered to ask "why me" because she had already walked a similar path before. In 2021, Maria lost her mother to brain cancer. She recalled how her father would say "Why us," and it made her reframe the question to "Why not us?"
"I'm not saying 'Why me?' because I know it's 'Why everybody?'" she said.
Now Maria is three months out from her surgery and doing well
The mother-to-be had a 3.9-centimeter tumor removed from her pancreas in February. "I'm grateful," she said of her encouraging prognosis.
While Maria will still need to get scans over the next five years, it seems that her outlook is good — which is great timing, because her baby will be here sometime this summer.
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We wish Maria continued good health
It's clear that this was a very scary and challenging time for the growing family. Hopefully now that the mass has been removed and Maria's initial scans are looking good, this will just be a blip on the radar for the soon-to-be family of three.
We can't wait for Maria and Keven to meet their little girl. Her parents are going to have a wild story to tell her when she grows up about what she missed before she arrived.
