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

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.