Patti Murin and Colin Donnell have lined up their next roles: parents.
“I’m going to be someone’s mom!” Murin says, almost with disbelief.
“We’re totally thrilled,” Donnell adds. “I don’t think there’s any way to really prepare ourselves. At least twice a day we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh! This is really happening, isn’t it?’ It’s crazy exciting. We’re just super, overwhelmingly happy.”
This will be the first child for Murin, 39, and Donnell, 37. The longtime pet parents, to two 6-year-old rescues, will be married for five years this coming June.
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The timing couldn’t be more perfect for Murin. Just on Sunday, she wrapped her two-year run on Broadway as Princess Anna in the Tony-nominated stage adaptation of the musicalFrozen.
“For the past 17½ weeks, I’ve been living this dual life of being two people: a Disney princess and also, pregnant. So I’m really looking forward to closing this chapter and concentrating on preparing for this next adventure,” she says.
“It’s especially great that no one will have to ask, ‘So what are you working on next?’ Because guess what’s next? I’m growing a human!” she jokes. “That’s what I’mreallyexcited about.”
Colin Donnell and Patti Murin.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Entertainment Weekly & People
Having originated the role inFrozen, Murin was with the project for a total of three years, counting workshops and out of town productions.
It was a part she nearly didn’t take. Just before she was cast, Murin learned she was pregnant, and planned to walk away from the musical after already participating in its initial reading and workshop. But a heartbreaking miscarriage at 8 weeks would open her back up to the project.
Deen van Meer
Turns out, doingFrozenwould help ready Murin for motherhood in a really unique way. Not only did it remind her about the importance of family, but the relationships she built backstage with the various young actresses playing Anna and Elsa had her wanting a little girl of her own.
Adds the mom-to-be, “I love them to pieces. I feel ready to raise a girl because I’m in a place as a woman where I feel like I know something about how I want them to turn out. It’s made me excited to have a little spitfire of a daughter of my own.”
Murin learned she was pregnant in November while she and O’Donnell were in Iceland,filming their Hallmark original movie,Love in Iceland.
“Plus, that’s the thing about this business: you kind of take what you get when you get it,” Murin jokes. “You can’t be super picky in the beginning and there’s just never time to plan. So I’m glad it worked out that way.”
But just because the timing worked out, doesn’t mean all was easy. Because she experienced a miscarriage previously at the 8-week mark, Murin says those first two months were especially hard for her and Donnell.
“We were excited, but we were also very nervous,” she remembers. “We knew I had a miscarriage before. We knew I have a slightly heart-shaped uterus, which makes it harder for pregnancies to implant. But we didn’t know if the miscarriage the first time around was a fluke or if it was really because of a reason and it was going to happen again. So we kind of talked about it but we didn’t make plans. There was a caution there.”
That went away as soon as the pair saw that heartbeat during that 8 week ultrasound. “We cried,” Murin says. “It was a complete relief. Like, all that fear just evaporated. Of course, you still hold your breath a bit. You leave a doctor’s appointment and you’re relieved and then the paranoia builds until the next one. But none, for me, was as hard as that first one.”
Walter McBride/Getty
Courtesy Patti Murin
They’re also taking in advice when they can get it, especially from their close friends in the Broadway family.
“There’s so much support out there. Every time we’ve gotten to tell someone, they’ve just been so positive,” Donnell says. “It’s really sweet and one of the coolest things about having a kid in what we do is that there is such a tight-knit community. You can’t beat it.”
Ultimately, both are just looking forward for the next step. They just need a vacation first.
“Right now the two of us are going to be in-between things, so we’re lucky to have time together,” says Donnell, who was recently cast in the Broadway-bound stage adaptation ofAlmost Famous. “Patti’s just been amazing. Literally, I cannot believe she didFrozenwhile going through the first and part of the second trimester of her pregnancy. That’s some superhuman stuff there. So now that she’s done, we’re going to travel someplace tropical so she can catch up on her rest and we can just relax.”
“I’ve been inFrozenfor a long time,” Murin teases. “Time for a change of climate.”
source: people.com
