Gerbermade the reveal Monday morning, with the Winter Park, Florida, parents finding out the news live on theTodayshow. Speaking with PEOPLE, the couple talked about the “pinch-me” moment, still in shock from the “surreal” victory. (The family is awarded a $25,000 cash prize, free Gerber products for up to one year and, of course, 365 days of bragging rights.)
“It started as a joke. We were like, ‘Hey, should we just do it,’ " Erin says of submitting their now-4½-month-old. Adds Mike with a laugh, " ‘Wait a minute: A competition to find out if he’s cute or not? Yes, enter him in!’ Lo and behold, he wins! Totally shocked.”
“He just has the aura of joy and happiness about him, just calm and serene. And when you’re around him, that’s what you feel and you see it,” adds the mom of Zane. “When he smiles, it’s hard not to smile along with him.”
Erin also tells PEOPLE about the emotional moment she met Zane after giving birth to him on Feb. 3. Her pregnancy came after she was unsure if she’d be able to conceive, having undergone chemotherapy, radiation and a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer at age 27.
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Courtesy The Kahin Family
“I always wanted to be a mom,” she says. “… It was hard. Mike and I had a talk about that early on of we wanted a family but we may have a difficult road to get there. We just were really blessed that we were able to get pregnant naturally and quickly. The concern was just Zane when I was pregnant. It was a relief, as the pregnancy went on, that he was developing as he should. He’s super healthy and happy.”
“That was a surreal moment, when he was born. It kind of came to a full-circle moment of I truly feel like I went through all of that so I could be his mom,” adds Erin.
Do not “give up hope,” she says to other women who may encounter similar experiences. “It’s still possible, even if you go through something as horrible and traumatic as cancer or any other situation where you feel like you may not be able to be a mom,” she says. “It can still happen.”
Mike and Erin are just excited to share their son with the world. “We’re excited to get to share Zane with everybody, like how we get to experience him on a daily basis,” says the proud mom.
source: people.com
