Priyanka Shares How Nick Jonas Supported Her Through Malti's NICU Stay

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is opening up about how she and her husband Nick Jonas supported each other during their daughter Matli Marie's 100-day stay in the NICU after she was born. "I remember [Nick] just held me by my shoulders, and I said, 'Just tell me what to do, because I don't know what to do,' " she recalled in a recent interview for Today's spring digital issue. "And he's like, 'Just get into the car with me.' And we drove to the hospital."

She continued, "She was born, and from the moment she took her first breath to now, she's never been without one of us, ever." The family of three celebrated Malti's first Easter earlier this month. While Priyanka and Nick welcomed Malti via surrogate in January 2022, she was in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for the first few months of her life and missed her very first Easter.

"I don't think it was our test. I think it was her test," Priyanka told Today. "I realized very, very early that I did not have the luxury to be scared or to be weak because she was scared and weak. And I had to be her strength as her mom. I needed to make her feel at every given moment that she's not alone … that we've got her." She went on, "[In the NICU], you know your child is alive because you can see their heartbeat (on the monitor). I couldn't sleep for days because now suddenly she was home without a monitor. I used to put my ear on her chest. I would wake up every couple of minutes just to see if she was OK. For weeks, this went on."

Now that Malti is healthy and happy, Priyanka makes sure to spend some time alone with Nick. "We do bath time, storytime, bedtime," she shared. "And then it's our time (for me and Nick), whether we … have friends over or just sit together and watch a movie."