INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Peta Murgatroyd And Maksim Chmerkovskiy Get Congrats From Their ‘DWTS’ Family After Baby Shai’s Arrival

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 22:19 PST, Jan 4, 2017

Peta Murgatroyd has given birth to her first child with fiancé Maksim Chmerkovskiy, and now the popular pro dancers are receiving a steady stream of well wishes from fans and from their Dancing With the Stars family. Maks and Peta welcomed their son, Shai Aleksander Chmerkovskiy, early in the morning on Jan. 4, just two days after Murgatroyd’s original due date.

Both Peta Murgatroyd and her fiancé posted the baby’s name and birth date on Twitter, but no other details about the birth or photos of the child have been released. On Jan. 4, Us Weekly posted a statement about the arrival of Maks and Peta’s baby:

“We can confirm that Peta and Maks have had their baby boy, Shai Aleksander Chmerkovskiy, born on Wednesday, January 4th at 5:34 a.m. Per the couple, ‘This is, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to us!'”

[Image by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Samsung]

Following Maks and Peta’s announcement, their Dancing With the Stars co-stars, including Peta’s mirrorball-winning Season 22 partner Nyle DiMarco and Maks’ champion Season 18 partner Meryl Davis, took to Twitter to offer the couple congratulations. In addition, DWTS co-hosts Erin Andrews and Tom Bergeron chimed in with well wishes for the new family.

And in his post, Dancing With the Stars host Tom Bergeron helped clarify the pronunciation of Baby Chmerkovskiy’s first name. Bergeron offered congratulations to “Mama Peta Murgatroyd” and “Papa Maskim C” and then added: “Welcome to baby Shai! Officially the closest Maks has ever come to ‘shy.'”

Indeed, fans have been curious about the baby’s name and how it is pronounced, so Bergeron’s post has helped to clear things up. Interestingly, Shai’s name rhymes with a previous name Chmerkovskiy and Murgatroyd had planned to use for their child. In a Facebook Q&A last fall, Peta revealed that the couple originally wanted to name their son Kai, but a friend scooped up the name before they did.

“We did have a baby name, actually,” Murgatroyd told her Facebook fans.

“It was going to be Kai. Because we have such a long middle name for him — it’s going to be Aleksander — and we have Chmerkovskiy at the end. So, we need something short and strong. But our friend in New York recently had a little boy and named him Kai. I mean, out of all the names in the world to call your son, you call him our name. We were pretty devastated about that. So, we have to go back to the drawing board and think about something better than Kai now.”

In an interview with Extra, Peta’s fiancé joked about using the same name that their friends used for their own newborn.

“Two ‘Apples’ in the same group is going to be weird,” Maks joked.

Peta Murgatroyd kept fans in the loop throughout her entire pregnancy by posting monthly belly shots and regular updates on her social media accounts. Maks and Peta also shared photos from their baby shower last month at the McCarren Hotel & Pool in Brooklyn, New York. The proud parents have been generous about sharing their pregnancy journey, but now fans are ready to see the first photos of Baby Chmerkovskiy.

Peta Murgatroyd and Maksim Chmerkovskiy first met in 2009 when they worked together on the Broadway production of Burn the Floor. The longtime DWTS pro dancers got engaged in 2015 but put the brakes on their wedding plans when Peta announced her pregnancy last spring. Murgatroyd plans to marry her longtime love this July in a ceremony in New York.

Take a look at the video below for more on the arrival of Peta Murgatroyd’s first child with her longtime DWTS love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyPa-CNplY8

[Featured Image by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]

Share this article: Peta Murgatroyd And Maksim Chmerkovskiy Get Congrats From Their ‘DWTS’ Family After Baby Shai’s Arrival
maksim chmerkovskiy peta murgatroyd
More from Inquisitr