That face! Peta Murgatroyd and Maksim Chmerkovskiy‘s newborn son, Shai, made his TV debut during a home interview with Good Morning America, which aired Friday, February 17. Watch the video above!
The Dancing With the Stars couple welcomed their first child together last month, but decided to not show his face until now. “I specifically wanted to keep him very private from the beginning because we wanted him to ourselves. I think he’s just so special that we wanted those moments, those first moments, to be for ourselves,” the new mom, 30, explained. “And you know, there’s going to come a time where he’s going to be with us walking hand-in-hand down the street and everyone’s going to be able to see him. And there’s so many moments and opportunities that are gonna come up very soon where you just, you can’t hide him any longer.”
The New Zealand native gave birth at 5:34 a.m. on January 4 and the engaged pair later tweeted their baby boy’s name to announce the news. Chmerkovskiy, 37, admitted to GMA that he cried “men tears” when Shai, which means “gift” in Hebrew and pronounced “shy,” arrived.
“It’s very, as they say, life-altering,” he told GMA of fatherhood. “I find myself sort of portraying like, ‘I got this,’ and then on the inside I’m like, ‘I don’t got this. I don’t got this.'” He added: “It’s very scary.”
After giving birth, Murgatroyd shared about her postbaby body on social media. “I left the hospital literally looking five months pregnant and at first I was like, ‘Oh, wow,’ like, I was a little disappointed. And I just realized that I just did the most beautiful thing that a woman can produce and do in life and I need to just suck it up, move on and, you know, not worry about the little things,” Murgatroyd told GMA. “I could hardly move, like, I’m a professional dancer and it was difficult to get back because I haven’t done it since I won [season 22 of DWTS] with Nyle [DiMarco].”
Murgatroyd and the Ukrainian hunk aren’t sure when they will return to DWTS, but they plan to marry sooner rather than later. The pair, who got engaged in December 2015, are currently planning a three-day, 300-guest wedding. Murgatroyd briefly considered pushing the wedding back after Shai was born, but Chmerkovskiy convinced her otherwise.
One thing they can agree on? Shai will definitely be a part of the ceremony. “I think one of the moms will probably carry him down and he’ll be all suited up and looking good,” Murgatroyd said.
