Maria Menounos Ready to Start a Family After Cancer Battle (Exclusive)

As she puts her cancer battle behind her, Maria Menounos is moving on with plans to start a family.

The 40-year-old star revealed that babies are on the horizon -- and “soon” -- while talking to ET’s Deidre Behar at the 2018 NBA Awards in Los Angeles, California, on Monday.

“It’d be really nice if there was one in here right now,” Menounos shared. “I think we're ready to figure it out. They only weird thing is that I froze embryos and now I can’t implant them because if I implant them and do all the hormones, the tumor will grow [back.] So, there is one way around it that we're investigating right now and then otherwise a surrogate.”

“Keven actually texted me yesterday and said, 'That’s it. I’m ready,'” the TV personality added about her husband, Keven Undergaro.

Menounos was diagnosed with a meningioma brain tumor in February 2017, at the same time her mother, Litsa, was battling stage four cancer. Menounos underwent seven hours of surgery to remove the tumor, which was benign, last June.

She said she felt “great” attending her first red carpet since the operation and also recently completed her first “full real hike” in a while.

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Reflecting on her health struggles and why she shared her journey so publicly, Menounos admitted that her openness was partly due to having a big family.

“There's the practical part of it when you realize you have 40 first cousins,” she explained. “You can’t keep a secret. It was hard enough to keep it a secret as I made it through surgery. It was important to all of us that I made it to the other side safely and then tell everyone.”

“Honestly, I don't really keep much quiet,” she added. “There's something for your family's sake that you always want to keep between your family, but this was something that was so surreal. It’s actually helped a lot of people who are in these random, surreal moments too. I'm finding out more and more examples of family members who have the same dynamic -- a mother and a daughter have the same situation, or a father and a daughter, so they don't feel as alone either.”

Helping others experiencing similar struggles has become important to Menounos, who revealed she’s working on a health show that she hopes to get off the ground in 2018.

“I really want to help families who are going through crisis situations because I feel like I've done it a couple of times,” she said. “And I want to help people because if it was that hard for me and I have the resources and the contacts that I do, I can only imagine the pain and suffering people are going through and it breaks my heart. I want to help.”

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