“like to be an expectant dad”: Olivia Munn reflects on her journey of welcoming her daughter Méi via surrogate

Olivia Munn reveals how she "felt like being an expectant dad.”

Actress Olivia Munn got candid with PEOPLE magazine about her feelings on becoming a mother through surrogacy. The Your Friends & Neighbors star compares her situation and emotions with how fathers feel while expecting a child. Olivia, who also shares son Malcolm with husband John Mulaney, welcomed their now 8-month-old daughter, Méi.

While talking about her journey, Olivia Munn expressed,

'Oh wait, is this what it's like to be an expectant dad?'"

She continued, "A lot of times people say, 'Oh, the dads don't really connect with the baby until it's right there in front of them,' " says Munn. "The dads, they're not carrying the baby. I carried Malcolm, so I understood from the very genesis, like, okay, I've got a life in me. Your body is changing and your energy is changing and your hair is changing and everything's changing, so it feels very real all the time."

"Even though it all felt very real for me, and our surrogate and I spoke all the time and she'd send me videos, it was a little bit of, 'Oh wait, she's coming,' " Munn further added. "I felt like an expectant father."

Olivia Munn had a breast cancer diagnosis in April 2023, for which she had a lymph node dissection, a nipple delay procedure, and a double mastectomy. These surgeries led to a small window where she could retrieve eggs, after which she had her uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries removed in a hysterectomy with oophorectomy. Hence, the decision to opt for surrogacy.

"It was important to do it at that moment, but it was also scary because my type of cancer feeds on hormones, and there are a lot of hormone injections with IVF.”

Olivia Munn was put through a special IVF protocol for cancer patients through which they were able to retrieve seven eggs, and two of the embryos from that were “strong enough to be tested for abnormalities and the gender.”

"I remember I was on a walk with John, and I said, 'I really don't think that I'll be okay unless we get two girl embryos. I know this puts me at risk, but I just need you to support me,' " Munn explains. "He said, ‘Whatever you need.’ "

While talking about the couple's choice for the surrogate mother, she reasons,

"The number one thing that I wanted in a surrogate was someone who was kind. I just wanted her to be kind, and I needed her to understand that this is a path that I had to go on. This is not a choice I would've made for myself."

Her biggest concern throughout the entire process, as she expresses, was whether her daughter would know her. However, looking at the silver lining, Olivia Munn expressed,

“It’s so crazy to think that I’m sitting here with two amazing babies,” says Olivia Munn. “I’m just so happy and grateful, and I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to do. I didn’t know how much strength I had inside me.”

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