How Old Are Former ‘GMA’ Anchor Joan Lunden’s 7 Children and What Are Their Names?
When former Good Morning America anchor Joan Lunden left the morning show in 1997, she announced that her departure was to spend more time with her family.
Little did she know at that time that her family would be expanding from three children to seven shortly after leaving the program.
Lunden’s three children from her first marriage
The 69-year-old journalist married Michael A. Krauss in 1978. The couple divorced in 1992 and had three daughters: Jamie, Lindsay, and Sarah.
Sarah Krauss is the youngest of Lunden’s daughters from her first marriage and was born in 1987. She has worked in the entertainment and television industries since 2009, according to her LinkedIn profile, on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, with Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network and, most recently, with Evolution Media.
Lindsay Krauss (now Weinberg) was born in 1983 and was the first of Lunden’s children to bestow the title of “grandma” upon her mother in 2014 with the arrival of Lindsay’s daughter, Parker Leigh. At the time of her granddaughter’s birth, Lunden had been battling an aggressive form of breast cancer, and the new addition to the family was just the medicine she needed.
“Part of what has made it so incredible is that we’re experiencing it with our families right by our side!,” Lindsay told People that year. “My mom was literally with me at the hospital even though I know she didn’t feel well at 1 a.m. as I was in labor. She came right back at 6 a.m. when Parker was born! It was truly the most special experience ever.”
Lunden’s oldest daughter, Jamie Beryl Krauss (now Hess), was born in 1980 and had a son named Mason Levi in 2015.
“She couldn’t take her eyes off him,” Jamie’s sister, Lindsay, told People in 2015 about her mother, who goes by the grandma handle of ‘Jo Jo.’ She kept saying, ‘My first baby has a baby!’ “
Lunden underwent fertility treatments after her second marriage
After marrying her second husband, businessman Jeff Konigsberg, in 2000, Lunden at 50, knew time was of the essence and immediately began fertility tests, which indicated pregnancy could still take place. The anchor tried about five in-vitro fertilization (IVF) attempts with no success, at which time the couple decided to have children via surrogacy.
Lunden spoke with MSNBC’s Deborah Norville about the intimacy between a couple wanting a child and the woman who will be bearing it for them. It can be awkward, Lunden noted, but it doesn’t need to be.
“Everyone has to be on the same page with these decisions,” she told Norville. “You have to decide how much contact you are going to have afterward, and put the relationship with the surrogate family into perspective. Do they want to see the babies? Do they just want a card once a year? Do they want to say, “I’m glad I did that for you” and never see you again?”
Her two sets of twins
Lunden and Konigsberg gave birth to two sets of twins, Kate and Max, in 2003 and Kimberly Elise and Jack Andrew in 2005. All four were delivered by the same surrogate.
“Our life is all about the choices we make,” Lunden continued in her conversation with Norville, “and when I was looking for a mate for life, I really was looking for someone who was a family man, somebody who would embrace my girls as much as they were going to embrace me. I guess I just wasn’t finished having children yet.”
Read more: Former ‘GMA’ Anchor Joan Lunden on Getting Kicked Off the Morning Show and the Realities of Aging
