Priyanka Chopra Shares a Never-Before-Seen Photo of Baby Malti as an Unbelievably Tiny Preemie
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NICU parents are a special kind of tough. The exhilaration of your baby being born is overshadowed by the worry and stress that something might be wrong. And if your little one had to stay in the intensive care unit for a while, then you know the unbelievable pain of leaving them at the hospital every night when visiting hours end. It’s so, so hard! Priyanka Chopra Jonas is reflecting on her own experience as a NICU mom when her daughter Malti was born several weeks premature. And she shared an incredible, never-before-seen picture of the now 2-year-old as a preemie. Her teeny tiny hand will melt your heart!
Monday Musings
“Time really flies. 😇🙏🏽🥹” the Citadel actress wrote on Instagram. “starting the week right. #mondaymusings #nostalgia.”
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The first picture is a selfie of her and Malti now, who she shares with husband Nick Jonas. They are sitting on the couch, snuggled up to each other and holding hands. Malti is wearing a pink hoodie and matching pants with a cute bear t-shirt over. Her eyes are down, so she’s either sleeping or completely relaxed as she leans into her mom in the sweet snap. Slide to the second picture to see how much Malti has grown up!
The throwback photo is a close-up of Chopra Jonas’s face and chest. She has a blanket wrapped around her, almost completely covering the baby in her arms — except for one little hand. Malti’s incredibly small hand is reaching out of the blanket to touch her mom’s face, and it’s so small it barely covers her chin. It’s such a powerful photo. Their love has grown as fast as Malti herself.
The “Waffle House” singer commented on the post, “❤️.”
So many others shared their love, too. “This moment is so precious ❤️❤️ time really does fly,” one person wrote. Another said, “She’s our little warrior 🥹.”
“I’m not crying, you’re crying 😭😭😭,” someone else said. (It’s safe to say, we’re all crying!)
Malti Spent 100 Days in the NICU
The Love Again star and the Jonas Brothers singer welcomed Malti via surrogate in January 2022. In May, the couple shared a long-awaited update on their firstborn.
“On this Mother’s Day we can’t help but reflect on these last few months and the rollercoaster we’ve been on, which we now know, so many people have also experienced,” they wrote on Instagram. “After 100 plus days in the NICU, our little girl is finally home. Every family’s journey is unique and requires a certain level of faith, and while ours was a challenging few months, what becomes abundantly clear, in retrospect, is how precious and perfect every moment is.”
Around the time of her first birthday, Chopra Jonas shared more details about their harrowing experience in a Feb. 2023 cover interview with British Vogue. “I was in the OR [operating room] when she came out,” Chopra Jonas recalled, explaining that Malti was born at 28 weeks, which was 12 weeks before her due date and considered “extremely” premature. “She was so small, smaller than my hand.” Can you imagine? That must have been so scary.
“I saw what the intensive-care nurses do. They do God’s work,” she continued. “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.”
Visiting Their Daughter
Chopra Jonas and Jonas traveled to the NICU daily to see their daughter, first at Rady Children’s Hospital in La Jolla, then at Cedars-Sinai in LA. “We spent every single day with her on my chest, on my husband’s chest,” Chopra Jonas continued. “I didn’t know if she would make it or not.”
In an April 2023 interview with TODAY, the Quantico actress shared how much Jonas helped her in the harrowing days after Malti’s birth. “I remember he just held me by my shoulders, and I said, ‘Just tell me what to do, because I don’t know what to do,’” Chopra Jonas said about her husband. “And he’s like, ‘Just get into the car with me.’ And we drove to the hospital. She was born, and from the moment she took her first breath to now, she’s never been without one of us, ever.”
.@priyankachopra & @nickjonas daughter, Malti, goes on her first hike at Topanga State Park and enjoys every bit of it. https://t.co/pSmJvcmIzp
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) February 22, 2024
“I don’t think it was our test. I think it was her test,” Chopra Jonas says about Malti struggling to survive. “I realized very, very early that I did not have the luxury to be scared or to be weak, because she was scared and weak. And I had to be her strength as her mom. I needed to make her feel at every given moment that she’s not alone…that we’ve got her.”
Considering how adventurous Malti is now, we can tell she felt every bit of their love and strength!
Before you go, check out these celebrity parents who have opened up about their premature births and babies.
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