Facebook CEO, 31 Mark Zuckerberg has announced he has become a father for the first time. Sweet couple is now celebrating their new baby daughter, Max‘s birth by vowing to give away £30 billion to “advancing human potential and promoting equality”. Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, gave birth to a 7-pound, 8-ounce daughter last week. But the couple didn’t put out the news until Tuesday. Mom and baby are both healthy and doing well. Chan had three previous miscarriages.
In the post, Zuckerberg opened up about the couple’s struggles with starting a family and the “lonely experience” of having suffered three miscarriages.
“You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone,” he wrote. “Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you — as if you’re defective or did something to cause this. So you struggle on your own.”
Zuckerberg didn’t share the baby’s due date but said the pregnancy is “now far enough along that the risk of loss is very low and we are very hopeful.”
“I’m already convinced she takes after me,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We’re looking forward to welcoming her into the world and sharing more soon when she’s ready to come out and meet everyone!”
Zuckerberg recently said he would take two months of paternity leave, pointing to studies that highlight the importance of spending time with newborn children.
He wrote in a post on the social network. “At Facebook we offer our US employees up to four months of paid maternity or paternity leave which they can take throughout the year.”
Melinda Gates, wife of the Microsoft founder, commented on Zuckerberg’s open letter. “As for your decision to give back so generously, and to deepen your commitment now, the first word that comes to mind is: Wow. The example you’re setting today is an inspiration to us and the world.
She wrote “We can be confident of this: Max and every child born today will grow up in a world that is better than the one we know now. As you say, ‘seeds planted now will grow’. Your work will bear fruit for many decades to come”.
Zuckerberg met Priscilla Chan at a fraternity party during his sophomore year at Harvard. They began dating in 2003. Chan is the daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugees, who arrived in the U.S. after the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
In September 2010, Zuckerberg invited Chan, by then a medical student at the University of California, to move into his rented Palo Alto house. Zuckerberg studied Mandarin in preparation for the couple’s visit to the People’s Republic of China in December 2010. On May 19, 2012, Zuckerberg and Chan married in Zuckerberg’s backyard in an event that also celebrated her graduation from medical school. On July 31, 2015, Zuckerberg announced that he and Chan were expecting a baby girl.
Babynamescube.com congratulates the couple on the arrival of their new family member.