OLIVIA Munn has revealed she and John Mulvaney have welcomed their second child through a gestational surrogate.
The actress, who revealed she had breast cancer in March, shared the couple’s happy news overnight.
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Introducing their newborn daughter to the world, Olivia wrote on Instagram: “Méi June Mulaney came into the world September 14, 2024, the year of the dragon.
“I had so many profound emotions about not being able to carry my daughter. When I first met our gestational surrogate we spoke mother to mother. She showed me so much grace and understanding, I knew I had found a real-life angel. Words cannot express my gratitude that she kept our baby safe for 9 months and made our dreams come true.
“I am so proud of my little plum, my little dragon for making the journey to be with us. My heart has exploded.
“Méi (pronounced may) means plum in Chinese.”
Gestational surrogacy is when the the woman carrying the baby did not provide the egg.
Fans and famous friends were delighted by the announcement.
Piers Morgan commented: “Wonderful news – many congrats to you all.”
Amanda Seyfried said: “Incredible family.”
Alyssa Milano wrote: “She’s perfect. Congrats.”
Earlier this year brave Olivia revealed she’d had four surgeries for her aggressive cancer, including a double mastectomy.
The 43-year-old revealed that in February 2023, she and her sister took a genetic test that checks for 90 different cancer genes.
The actress was elated after they both tested negative for all the cancerous genes, including breast cancer, “We called each other and high-fived over the phone,” Munn wrote.
What is surrogacy?
Surrogacy is the name given for a type of pregnancy where a woman carries and gives birth to another person’s baby.
The surrogate mother is then expected to give up the baby at birth, so it can be raised by the couple who originally wanted the baby.
Surrogacy is often an option for those unable to have children themselves, or for same sex couples.
According to surrogacy charity Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy (COTS), there are two different types of surrogacy.
- Traditional surrogacy: When the surrogate uses her own egg fertilised with the intended father’s sperm.
- Gestational surrogacy: The surrogate carries the intended parent’s genetic child conceived through IVF, for which specialist doctors are needed.
How are surrogate babies conceived?
In traditional surrogacy procedures, the egg is artificially inseminated using a syringe.
Gestational surrogacy is carried out through IVF.
During this in vitro fertilisation process, the egg is removed from the woman’s ovaries and fertilised with sperm in a laboratory.
The embryo is then planted in the surrogate’s womb to grow and develop.
This procedure must be carried out by specialist doctors and the biological mother is required to still have working ovaries.
However, in April, Munn was diagnosed with breast cancer.
A biopsy revealed that she had Luminal B cancer in both breasts.
Luminal B is an aggressive and fast-moving form of cancer, according to breastcancer.org.
“In the past ten months I have had four surgeries, so many days spent in bed I can’t even count and have learned more about cancer, cancer treatment and hormones than I ever could have imagined,” The Newsroom actress said.
“Surprisingly, I only cried twice. I guess I haven’t felt like there was time to cry.
“My focus narrowed and I tabled any emotions that I felt would interfere with my ability to stay clear-headed.”
PRIVATE BATTLE
Munn revealed that she’s kept her battle private and only let others see her when she has energy.
“I needed to catch my breath and get through some of the hardest parts before sharing,” she said.
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Munn went on to thank her doctor, who detected the cancer after deciding to calculate her Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Score just in case.
“The fact that she did saved my life,” said wrote.
Thirty days after her diagnosis, Munn underwent a double mastectomy and went from “feeling completely fine one day, to waking up in a hospital bed after a 10-hour surgery the next.”
Munn credited her family, friends, and longtime lover, John Mulaney, for their support throughout her health battle.
“I’m so thankful to John for the nights he spent researching what every operation and medication meant and what side effects and recovery I could expect,” she wrote.
“For being there before I went into each surgery and being there when I woke up, always placing framed photos of our little boy Malcolm so it would be the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.”
‘I WAS JUST SO OBSESSED’
Munn and Mulaney, 41, have been together for three years following his split from his ex-wife of six years, Anna Marie Tendler.
The pair were photographed together for the first time in June 2021 but kept details about their relationship private.
In September 2021, Mulaney confirmed that Munn was expecting their first child, Malcolm Hiệp, who was born in November of that year.
In a 2015 interview with HuffPost, Munn talked about her first awkward conversations with Mulaney, whom she met at a wedding two years before.
“We were at a wedding together and I was like, ‘ Oh, my gosh, do you and your fiancée want to go have dinner or something and go hang out?” she said at the time.
“At first, it was cool, and then I kept going up to him at the wedding like, ‘So, you having fun?’ I was just so obsessed with hanging out with and talking with him.”
Munn, who starred as Psylocke on 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse, revealed she even emailed him after the event to try to keep in touch with him.
“He never emailed back,” Munn joked. “I might’ve got the wrong email, probably. That’s what I tell myself.”
Munn and Mulaney made their public debut in January during the Governors Awards red carpet in Los Angeles.
However, the couple’s first public outing sparked controversy on social media.
Photos of the couple were posted to a pop culture Reddit board, where fans weighed in on the controversy surrounding how the pair began dating.
One critic wrote, “The fact that she was after him at a wedding he was at with Anna (they were engaged) and emailed him after because she was ‘obsessed with hanging out and talking to him.’ I will never like them.”
“Yeah. Not even Ariana Grande bragged about meeting her new boyfriend when he was with his wife,” commented another.
A third person remarked, “She wanted to be the other woman as soon as she laid eyes on John so bad.”