Peta Murgatroyd and fiance Maksim Chmerkovskiy are taking a break from “Dancing With the Stars” to focus on being parents. The couple welcomed their first child together — a baby boy — just over a month ago. The former “DWTS” pro opened up about how she and Maks chose their baby name, admitting that “it took months and months.”
The couple has been parenting very privately, sharing few details about their baby boy and keeping his photo off social media until recently. After finally debuting their son Shai Aleksander’s face on Instagram, Peta decided to let fans in a little in a post on her blog. According to the post, the couple wanted a name that they both loved — one that wasn’t too long but had a lot of meaning. They stumbled upon Shai, which means “gift” in Hebrew, and the rest was history.
“It’s a perfect fit because from the very beginning, we felt like this little life we made was the most precious gift God could grant us,” she said.
Peta and Maks showed Shai’s face online in photos for the first time on Feb. 18. Both new parents shared different photos of their baby boy on Instagram, which delighted fans. Maks’ caption read simply, “My son…” while Peta called him “the love of our life” and directed fans to her blog for more pictures.
Prior to the big reveal, Maks and Peta were clear with fans that they would not be sharing pictures of Shai right away. In an Instagram post just days after the birth of his son, Maks explained that he was protective of his son. He said that he and Peta had been allowing very few people to even come visit their baby boy, as they wanted to soak in the full experience of being first time parents. Neither Maks nor Peta gave any clues as to when they planned to start snapping pictures of their son for all to see.
Shai was born on Jan. 4. Maks made the announcement on Twitter, sharing both his son’s full name and the exact time of his birth with fans. The news came nearly two days after Maks shared a photo of Peta lying in a hospital bed putting makeup on in preparation for meeting her son.
Peta Murgatroyd, photographed at an event hosted by People magazine in Hollywood, California, on October 13, 2016, recently opened up about naming her son. Photo: Getty Images
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