Aubrey Plaza confirms pregnancy with first child after personal challenges and health struggles
Aubrey Plaza revealed she's pregnant with her first child.
During an appearance on the "Smartless" podcast, the "Parks and Recreation" star recalled how birth control pills may have contributed to her past medical traumas, which included having a stroke when she was 20 years old.
When the hosts inquired if Plaza would still pursue contraception methods, she casually admitted, "There's a baby inside me."
Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes were surprised as the "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" actress reiterated, "There is a baby inside of me right now."
"Today was a big day. I went to the doctor's today and my dog also went to the doctor's," she recalled. "My dog's getting a scan right now, I got a scan earlier. I'm not kidding."
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"She had to get an ultrasound on her stomach and then I got an ultrasound on my stomach and there is a baby in there."
Plaza, 41, who is dating actor Christopher Abbott, admitted she's excited about being a mother and "always wanted to see what that's all about."
"It just seems so interesting," she said.
Earlier in the podcast, Plaza detailed how having a stroke in college impacted her life in a number of ways.
"It happened like truly in mid-sentence out of nowhere," Plaza said. "It's a horrifying story."
"I had taken my sisters to a Hilary Duff concert the night before, and you know how that goes. I was feeling normal. I had my coat on still. I walked into my friend's apartment in Astoria to have lunch with them, and I was telling them about the Hilary Duff concert."
Just as Plaza was saying the "Come Clean" singer's name, she started experiencing stroke symptoms.
"I stroked out and I kind of ... the first thing that happened was like my right arm was numb, and I looked down, and I was confused," she said. "I wasn't slurring, but I was looking at my arm like that's not my arm. It wasn't even numb, it was just not connected to my body."
Plaza said she "blacked out" for a second and once she came to, she couldn't speak because of a blood clot stuck in her "language center."
"It was like not even slurring; it was just like not talking, but I can understand everything," she remembered.
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Her medical drama remains a mystery.
Plaza said she believed birth control medicatio may have contributed to her stroke.
"That was the only thing I was putting in my body," she said. "Like I wasn't on drugs or, you know, doing anything weird."
She added, "It was a real fluke, and even to this day, like I still have to, you know, whenever I go to the doctors, I have to fill out like my history and ... I've seen top neurologists, I've been tested for, you know, all the blood disorders and clotting disorders and everything."
Plaza said the stroke "100 million percent" impacted her outlook on spirituality.
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"I grew up very Catholic. I went to an all-girls' Catholic school my whole life, and so, my spirituality was like very wrapped up in the like saints and God and Jesus and, you know, things like that."
She added, "I feel like I've always been a spiritual person, you know. Now I've shifted into more of the dark arts, you know?"
Her pregnancy announcement comes more than one year after Plaza's estranged husband, director Jeff Baena, died by suicide. He was 47.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call on Jan. 3 in Los Angeles where a victim was pronounced dead at the scene, Fox News Digital confirmed at the time.
Baena's representative directed Fox News Digital to a statement originally shared with Deadline. "The family is devastated and asks for privacy at this difficult time," the statement read.
The couple was private about their relationship after meeting in 2011. It is unclear when they wed, but Plaza confirmed the couple's marriage status in 2021 in an Instagram post.