Hayden Panettiere is “over the moon and madly in love!” Those were her own words about her new baby girl. Panettiere’s new baby Kaya Evdokia Klitschko weighed 7 lbs., 14 oz. at birth, and was 20 inches.
Panettiere had played the pregnancy pretty close to the vest, only accidentally revealing the gender of the baby at the Emmy Awards.
“I can’t wait for her to come out, this little one,” Panettiere told interviewer Giuliana Rancic.
“It’s a girl?” Rancic asked. “I think I just said that, didn’t I?” Panettiere laughed. “Yes, it’s a little girl.”
As the months went on, Panettiere grew eager. She has had a great career and felt confident about her ability to raise a daughter who could do anything she wanted.
“I’m so ready to hold my baby girl—I’m going to be a very hands on mom,” she told Hello! magazine. “I’m thrilled that I am having a girl first because I feel like I know a lot about raising a strong woman. I feel very empowered myself and I think my daughter will, too.”
As for the baby’s name, Panettiere had to consider the heritages involved. Her finacé Wladimir Klitschko is Ukrainian. Klitschko is a Ukrainian heavyweight professional boxer — the longest-reigning Ukrainian champ in history, in fact — so they wanted their daughter to have a name that worked in both Ukrainian and English.
“We have to make sure that it is American and Ukrainian all at the same time,” Panettiere said back in November. “That’s a little rough…we’re still working on it.”
Panettiere and Klitschko are engaged, but Panettiere said she is not in a hurry to run down the aisle until she sheds the baby weight.
“I’ll tell you one thing for sure: I am not walking down the aisle 40 pounds heavier than usual in a wedding dress with a huge pregnancy belly stitched in,” she told E!. “Not happening.”
Back in November she talked about the extra weight. But there was one plus.
“I’m five feet, two inches,” she said, “and I started out at 106 pounds and guess how much I weigh now? Around 145 pounds. And the worst part is that my feet are still size five and they’re going, ‘What’s going on with all this weight?’ They’re about to snap from underneath me with the strain. I’m still quite muscular, so if you’re running around carrying 40 pounds of extra weight, you’re going to build extra muscle.”