New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver is officially a mom of two.
The congresswoman announced on Thursday, Oct. 1, that she welcomed her second child, a healthy baby girl.
“Being a mom is one of the greatest joys of my life, and I feel deeply grateful to welcome this beautiful, healthy baby into the world,” McIver said in an official statement. “There really aren’t words to describe how blessed my family feels to welcome a new life into the world.”
McIver and her husband, Khalif Thomas, are already parents to 10-year-old daughter Zaya.
a September essay for ELLE, the New Jersey lawmaker opened up about struggling to conceive again after having Zaya.
She had dealt with uterine fibroids since her 20s and underwent several surgeries to remove them. When she and Thomas later tried for another baby, testing revealed that her fallopian tubes had been damaged, leaving IVF as her only option for conceiving again.
Their IVF treatment resulted in two embryos. The first transfer in 2022 was unsuccessful.
She decided to wait before trying again. During that time, her fibroids returned, and she underwent another surgery before the couple moved forward with their remaining embryo.
“I was crossing my fingers because it was the last embryo,” McIver recalled. “And it worked.”
In May, she revealed that she and Thomas were expecting their second child that fall.
With her daughter’s arrival, McIver becomes the 15th sitting member of Congress to give birth while in office and the second Black woman to do so.
Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke became the first Black congresswoman, and the first sitting member of Congress overall, to give birth while serving in 1973.
In her birth announcement, McIver shared how she continues to fight for other families.
“Getting the chance to raise a family is a priority and a delight for me, something I hope everyone who wants to, gets the chance to do,” she said. “Bringing a child into the world is a reminder not only of why we fight for maternal healthcare and reproductive rights, but of why we fight for the rights and freedoms of our most vulnerable– they are someone’s babies too.”
The new mom will spend October recovering and bonding with her baby without paid maternity leave from Congress before returning to House votes in November.
