Hayden Panettiere Gushes About Her "Sweet" Baby Girl, Calls Motherhood a "Surreal Experience"

Nashville star also expresses confusion over her post-baby body

By Mike Vulpo Dec 24, 2014 12:58 AMTags
Hayden Panettiere, Wladimir KlitschkoKevin Mazur/WireImage

Hayden Panettiere is loving life as a new mom!

Just days before Christmas, the Nashville star and fiancé Wladimir Klitschko are opening up about life with their newborn daughter, Kaya Evdokia. Turns out she is everything they hoped for and more.

"She's really so sweet," the new mom gushed to People, her first time speaking out since giving birth. "I'm sure that's the way it's meant to be, because when they are putting you through the ringer you're like, ‘You are so lucky you're cute!'"

And although Kaya is only two weeks old, the baby already has plenty of hair on her head and resembles both mom and dad.

ABC/Mark Levine

While she had a healthy and uneventful delivery, Panettiere admits that recovering has been a bit of a struggle.

"I'm limping around. I'm still trying to figure out what [pregnancy] has done to my body, how it's changed it. What's temporary and what's permanent," she joked to the mag. "I feel like an 80-year-old woman trying to go down the stairs, you know, please tell me this is temporary. But I know some things will never be the same again."

Throughout the highs and lows—not to mention sleepless nights—Panettiere has had the support of her main man throughout the journey.

"He's such a resilient guy. He's so calm and patient," she recently told Hello! about her heavyweight boxing champ beau. "I have never even heard this man raise a voice."

As the couple gears up to celebrate their very first Christmas as parents, Panettiere still can't believe how life has changed for the better.

This has been "such a surreal experience and so out of body," she also told People. "You're suddenly looking at this little thing like, ‘Oh, that was you in my belly this whole time.' [We're] just getting to know her."