Actress Mena Suvari, 41, Announces She Is Expecting Her First Child Via Instagram
Actress, fashion designer and philanthropist Mena Suvari is pregnant with her first child, a boy, with husband Michael Hope. The BAFTA-nominated star of films and television programs like American Beauty, the American Pie series and South of Hell announced the forthcoming arrival via Instagram on Friday.
In the update, the 41-year-old included a photograph of herself touching a modest baby bump as she posed outdoors with her eyes closed while wearing a sleeveless turtleneck dress with green trees and shrubbery visible in the shot behind her. Meanwhile, she used the post’s caption to officially welcome “Baby Hope,” saying that “the greatest, most precious gift has come our way.”
She also wrote that the couple’s “little angel” had chosen them “through all the trauma, through all the struggle” and “through all the doubt.”
Within an hour of hitting her feed, Suvari’s post had made a significant splash, notching almost 10,000 likes.
Suvari confirmed to People that the child is scheduled to arrive next spring. She also offered additional insight regarding her reaction to finding out she was pregnant.
“It’s still this process for me of believing it and accepting that something this beautiful could happen for me. It’s been a very emotional experience. It’s very weird finding out — I was like, I can’t believe it!” she said. “I’ve had to learn how to be a different way with my appetite and my sleep habits and not pushing myself, asking for help — all these things are hard for an independent woman!”
According to Suvari, who most recently starred alongside Jack Dylan Grazer, Fionn Whitehead and Rainn Wilson in Don’t Tell a Soul, which premiered at the Deauville Film Festival last month, she and her husband had been actively trying to start a family since earlier this year. Even so, the news still came as a surprise as the couple had struggled to conceive over the course of several months.
She further recounted that in mid-July, after opting to take a step back from the process and instead focus on her work, she noticed a shift in her body while on-set in Georgia. At first, she believed it was a simple case of jet lag, but after additional symptoms surfaced, she decided to take the test that yielded a positive result for pregnancy.
Suvari and Hope, who originally met on the set of the 2016 Hallmark movie, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, married in secret in 2018, per People. It was the third marriage for the actress, who had previously tied the knot with cinematographer Robert Brinkmann in 2000 and Italian-Canadian concert promoter Simone Sestito in 2017.
As relayed previously by The Inquisitr, Suvari has been an advocate for the proper treatment of animals, once lobbying Bed, Bath & Beyond to stop selling down bedding over animal cruelty concerns.
