Kelly Ripa says she thought she was pregnant when she first started going through menopause

‘I was really grateful that I was not going to have to explain to my kids that they were about to meet their new sibling,’ she says

Kelly Ripa has revealed that, when she first started going through menopause, she mistakenly thought that she was pregnant.

The 51-year-old television host discussed her upcoming book, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories, and what she included in it during a recent interview with Haute Living.

Ripa said her book will “definitely include” an experience during the pandemic where she thought that her husband, Mark Consuelos “got [her] pregnant” until he ultimately helped her realise that she wasn’t.

“I started taking pregnancy tests daily, but then Mark sort of gingerly said, ‘Could there be another reason why you’re not getting your period?’ and me saying, ‘What other reason could there possibly be?’ He really had to walk on eggshells here [by explaining to me that I was probably going through menopause],” she explained.

Ripa then acknowledged her relief about not being pregnant, adding: “I was really grateful that I was not going to have to explain to my kids that they were about to meet their new sibling.”

She also noted if she had another child, there would be a large age gap amongst her children. Her youngest son, Joaquin, with the Riverdale star is 19-years-old. The couple also have a 25-year-old son, Michael, and a 21-year-old daughter, Lola.

According to the Mayo Clinic, while menopause is “the time that marks the end of” a person’s “menstrul cycle,” pregnancy during it “is still possible”.

Elsewhere in her interview with Haute Living, Ripa recalled an experience with her husband in 1997 that’s also documented in her book, where she passed out while having sexual intercourse. Apparently, Ripa had two large cysts in her ovaries and quipped that Consuelos was “completely undaunted” when bringing her to the hospital.

“My eyes shift between the fuzzy images on the screen, the remnants of my ovarian tormentor, and Mark happily snacking away,” Ripa wrote. “Sex can be so traumatic I think, and yet one of us is completely undaunted. There he is, happily munching on the saltines now and ordering a second apple juice. Mark could be at a movie, or a spa. Instead, I’m flat on my back wondering when the other two cysts will burst.”

Riap went on to poke fun at the fact that her husband looked “well-dressed” and “stylish” at the hospital, while he dressed her “like a dime store prostitute in [her] time of need”.

“It’s still baffling to me to this day that this is the best costume for the day that he could find for me, to the point where, when I was on the stretcher, I thought I was dreaming; I was having a nightmare. I didn’t realise I had come to,” she added.