Olivia Munn has opened up about her unconventional journey to becoming a mother.
The actor, 43, appeared on the June 4 episode of Ella MD podcast with her OB-GYN, Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi, who gave birth to Munn's son, Malcolm, in November 2021. The new girl The star shares her now two-year-old son with comedian John Mulaney.
“It was a surprise pregnancy,” she told podcast co-hosts Dr. Aliabadi and Mary Alice Haney. Munn explained that she had frozen her eggs twice, once at 33 and once at 39, when people weren't as open about the egg freezing process.
She decided to freeze her eggs after learning that a mutual friend wanted to have a baby, but had to undergo chemotherapy for her cancer treatment. According to the National Cancer Institute, chemotherapy and radiation can negatively affect the ovaries, causing them to stop releasing eggs and producing estrogen.
Munn described how she spoke publicly about her fertility journey on fellow actress Anna Faris' podcast, and instantly received praise as “one of the first people” to speak openly about egg freezing.
“As a woman, things are just unpredictable and even if everything is going perfectly with your health, we have a biological clock that doesn't exist for men,” Munn said. “If I froze my eggs, that means I don't have to race against the clock. It means I don't have to try to find a partner to make this happen. It means I don't have to make a decision about what I want to do. “It just gives me the gift of time, it allows me to just breathe.”
As for Malcolm, Munn described becoming pregnant naturally with Malcolm, without artificial reproductive technology, as “a blessing.”
Elsewhere during the podcast, the newsroom The star admitted that her pregnancy was “surprisingly” easy at times but “difficult” at the same time. Munn explained that she had certain expectations about how she would look when she was pregnant, although her expectations were completely dismissed.
“I looked nothing like what I see in people when they are pregnant. I had a six-day window where he looked cute,” she said jokingly. “I wore the same sweatpants and the same flannel shirt everywhere because I just couldn't match them.”
The Hollywood star acknowledged how “being in the public eye” and the benefits of social media have given people “greater understanding” and “a lot more compassion and grace” about what women are going through on a daily basis. . However, that didn't stop him from feeling insecure about her appearance during the pregnancy.
“I had friends who were pregnant at the same time or had their babies after me, and yet they respond like this,” Munn said. “Their pregnancy outfits were so cute, everything was so pretty or they already had the nurseries set up. The nursery wasn’t finished until days before, I mean days before.”
Although Munn noted that what people post on social media isn't always reality, he joked that he “didn't even have the energy” to pretend his life was in order.
“I gained 60 pounds, that's when I stopped counting,” he continued. “I stayed home a lot during my pregnancy and really wanted pizza and Lucky Charms… My body didn't recover afterwards, I didn't lose weight. I’m doing a lot of laser treatments on my stomach right now,” Munn said, referring to her postpartum body as having a “deflated balloon” effect.
Even though her pregnancy had its ups and downs, Munn assured her fans that she would “give [her] the whole body up” for his son Malcolm.
Munn and Mulaney announced the arrival of their first child together on December 24, 2021. Sharing the same snap of Malcolm sleeping on Instagram, the couple showed off their newborn baby wrapped in a furry white blanket and wearing a baby blue hat. . “My baby Golden Ox. Malcolm Hiệp Mulaney. Happy Holidays,” he captioned the Christmas Eve post.
Meanwhile, the Big Mouth The actor shared a funny message on Instagram after welcoming his son. “This is Malcolm Hiệp Mulaney. He has his whole life ahead of him. He hasn’t even tried seltzer yet,” Mulaney wrote in the Instagram caption. “I'm very in love with him and the whole thing about him. Happy Holidays.”
The couple began dating in 2021. In September of that year, Mulaney confirmed on Late Night with Seth Meyers that they were expecting a baby together. The announcement came just two months after he filed for divorce from his wife of six years, Anna Marie Tendler, in July 2021. The couple had originally separated in May, following Mulaney's reported drug addiction relapse. and his 60-day rehabilitation treatment.
Most recently, Munn revealed in March that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone double mastectomy surgery.
