Actress Priyanka Chopra did not know if daughter would make it following pre-term birth
LOS ANGELES – Indian actress Priyanka Chopra had some fun on the beach this past weekend with her husband, singer-actor Nick Jonas, and their one-year-old daughter, Malti.
Chopra, 40, shared photos of them at a beach in Malibu, California, on Sunday.
The post, simply captioned “Sunday”, quickly garnered more than 2.2 million likes from her nearly 85 million followers on Instagram.
The Quantico (2015 to 2018) actress and Jonas, 30, who married in July 2018 after a two-month courtship, had welcomed their daughter on Jan 15, 2022.
But as Chopra revealed in a new interview published by fashion magazine British Vogue on Thursday, their early days of parenthood were challenging.
Unnamed “medical complications” on Chopra’s part led her and Jonas down the path of surrogacy.
“This was a necessary step, and I’m so grateful I was in a position where I could do this,” she said.
However, the pregnancy took a turn when baby Malti ended up being born a full trimester before her due date.
“I was in the (operating room) when she came out. She was so small, smaller than my hand... Nick and I were both standing there as they intubated her. I don’t know how they even found what they needed (in her tiny body) to intubate her,” Chopra added.
The couple spent the next three months at the neonatal intensive care unit at two hospitals in California, said Chopra. “We spent every single day with her on my chest, on my husband’s chest. I didn’t know if she would make it or not.”
The young family has since chosen to stay low-key on social media, with both Chopra and Jonas limiting photographs of Malti and obscuring her face as needed.
“I’ve been really protective of this chapter of my life with my daughter. Because it’s not about my life only. It’s hers too,” said Chopra.
However, she did reveal: “Most people say she looks like Nick.”
Chopra, who carved out a successful career in Bollywood before moving to Hollywood, took a break from acting in 2022 to focus on motherhood.
But she will be appearing in romantic comedy Love Again, co-starring Sam Heughan and Celine Dion, which is slated for release in May.
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