Maya Vander opens up about pregnancy and delivery with her ‘miracle baby’ after stillbirth

After suffering a tragic late-term pregnancy loss and stillbirth in 2021 and a miscarriage in 2022, Maya Vander from “Selling Sunset” is enjoying life with her “miracle baby” after delivering a healthy little girl earlier this spring.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the Netflix star says she chose to keep quiet about this pregnancy after enduring such a devastating pregnancy loss at 38 weeks pregnant with her son, Mason.

“I didn’t know how this pregnancy would go and things obviously happen, I learned, unfortunately,” she explains. “I decided to just keep it quiet mostly, I didn’t want to do just anything and I wanted to just make sure everything is going well and the baby’s healthy and the delivery is healthy and everything is fine before going public about it all.”

She says her pregnancy with little Emma—who joins big sister Elle, 3, and big brother Aiden, 4—was perfect, if understandably nerve-wracking.

“This pregnancy, in particular, because of my late loss last year, it was a bit more — I wouldn’t call it anxiety because I’m a pretty relaxed person — I was just a little more cautious and worried because I learned that you can lose a baby, no matter how far along you are, even if things are going the way they should be.”

Because of her late-term loss, Vander had increased monitoring throughout her pregnancy with Emma. She was also able to be induced at 37 weeks, and says it was “helpful” to have more checks and be assured everything was normal this time around.

Vander also addressed the fact that fans of “Selling Sunset” joke about how often she’s been pregnant, because the way the seasons of the show have been filmed, she’s been pregnant for most of them.

“People also joke to me that, ‘Maya is always pregnant’ but I say I’m 41 years old. I was pregnant technically seven times between miscarriages and unfortunately the stillbirth, which is really the next level of a loss, and I have three kids to show for it,” she explains.

Vander says because she was mentally prepared and expecting to have three children, it was impossible for her to let go of that idea after losing Mason. She says she considered moving on and trying to be satisfied with her two healthy, happy kids—but something was missing.

“I had a huge voice that — I think unless you experience something like that it’s very hard to explain because most people will say you’re lucky and just leave it, be okay with what you have,” she says. “But it’s very hard to move on after you lost the baby, so late in pregnancy. Something was really missing.”

It’s beautiful to see the joy and relief Vander feels with her family after the arrival of Emma. As for returning to “Selling Sunset,” the realtor and real estate broker—who appeared very briefly on the most recent season via FaceTime—says there’s only one way she’d consider coming back.

“I’m like ‘You know what, guys? I’ll do a FaceTime,’ Maybe I’ll do more, we’ll see. But they’ve got to tone down this drama for me to do another [season]. We’ll see.”