Everything the Actress Has Said About Motherhood

Yvonne Strahovski may play the vicious Serena Joy on The Handmaid’s Tale, but in real life she is a dedicated mom to three boys. 

The Dexter actress secretly married her husband, Tim Loden, during the summer of 2017, and revealed the news on the Emmy Awards red carpet that September. The couple then welcomed their first son, William, in 2018, second son in 2021 and third son in 2023.

The couple have built a reputation for keeping their relationship and children’s lives private. In fact, Strahovski wanted to keep her first pregnancy a secret, but Mother Nature had other plans.

“I tried to do that but then the awful symptoms took over and it was becoming difficult to hide that from everybody,” she told Conan O’Brien in August 2018. Since then, Strahovski has announced her pregnancies on red carpets and births on Instagram.

Although the actress and her husband have not shared the names of their two younger boys and refrain from posting photos of their faces on social media, Strahovski does occasionally share glimpses into her life as a mom.

Here’s everything Yvonne Strahovski has said about being a mom to her three sons.

Yvonne Strahovski became a mom in 2018

Strahovski and Loden became parents for the first time in October 2018, when they welcomed their oldest son, William.

“My heart has melted into a billion pieces a thousand times already,” she captioned a black-and-white photo holding her infant. “We have been blessed with the greatest joy of our lives, our baby boy. Welcome to the world Peanut, your parents love you beyond measure and you are already my little dream boat. My heart has been stolen!”

One month prior, Strahovski accidentally spilled the sex of their little one on the Emmys red carpet while talking about her looming due date. “Any day — hopefully not today. Just gonna hold him in there and hope for the best,” she said to E! News before realizing her slip-up. “Now we have [announced it],” she added, laughing. “So it’s out!”

Strahovski returned to work just seven weeks after her first son was born. “It was definitely one of the hardest and most challenging moments ever in my entire career,” she told Glamour U.K. in 2019. “Coming back to work with a newborn and all the sleep deprivation that comes with that, plus I was breastfeeding.”

Strahovski added, “I was devastated to begin with … But in hindsight looking back on it, I think that because I knew I was going back to work, I appreciated every single little moment that I had with him.”

Strahovski’s second son was born in 2021

Strahovski became a mother of two in December 2021 when her and Loden’s second son was born.

“An angel joined our world this past week ❤️,” she wrote in the caption of a tender photo holding her baby boy on Instagram. “Welcome to the family my love ❤️ I love you so very much.”

She shared the news of her pregnancy in June 2021 when she walked the Tomorrow War red carpet.

“I’m having a boy,” she told Entertainment Tonight at the event.

Strahovski welcomed her third son in 2023

Strahovski and Loden’s third son was born in December 2023.

“Our third little (big!) boy thundered into the world at lightning speed,” she shared alongside an Instagram photo of Loden holding the infant while Strahovski kissed his tiny forehead. ”Thank goodness Tim was there to catch our boy jussstttt as our amazing team made it into our home to help.”

She added that the “unreal, intense, amazing experience” would be one she would always remember. 

Though the couple planned a home birth, they didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did. “We basically had an unplanned, unassisted birth at home, together,” Strahovski recalled on Live with Kelly and Mark in October 2024. “[Loden] was amazing … When he realized that the baby was coming out, he took a big pause, then it was silent, then he said, ‘Let me get a towel,’ so calmly!” 

“The midwife was running in right as he was coming out, and Tim had to catch,” she said.

Strahovski and Loden’s other two children slept through the whole ordeal. “My kids are the worst sleepers on the planet but they just slept through all of the chaos … they were literally right there in their beds!” she said, laughing.

Strahovski’s kids and husband often join her on set

Strahovski took very little time off work after the birth of her first son.

“We went back to work when he was six weeks old and I was breastfeeding on demand as you do when you have a young one, “she told Katie Couric Media in June 2019. “I was just running back and forth from set to the trailer, to set, back to the trailer to feed pretty much on the hour, so it was very hectic.”

Luckily, her husband was incredibly supportive, according to the actress. “There’s not a day that goes by when I’m not really actively wondering ‘How on earth am I going to do this?’ ” she told Sophia Bush on her Work in Progress podcast in December 2024. “For sure, it wouldn’t be possible without my extraordinary husband who is at home with the kids when I’m at work.”

Sometimes, Loden and the kids even join her on set so they can all spend more time together. “My husband is a rock star and a truly amazing Dad who comes to work,” she told Katie Couric Media. “We all go to work together – me, my husband and my son.”

Strahovski added that she feels “lucky” and “blessed” to have a job that allows her family to come with her to work. “I’m very grateful, not many people get to do it together, and we get to do it together,” she said.

Strahovski’s family split their time between California and Canada

Strahovski has been a main character on The Handmaid’s Tale since filming began in 2017, so after her first son was born, her family split their time between their home in California and the filming location for the series in Canada. 

“We’re very much a gypsy family,” Strahovski told Katie Couric Media in June 2019. “We haven’t really been home at all since our son’s been born, only for a couple of weeks over Christmas and a few days here and there in between work so he’s very well traveled.”

The family spent a particularly long time in Toronto while filming the show’s sixth and final season throughout 2024 and early 2025. Strahovski and her family said their goodbyes to the city in a sentimental post in February 2025. 

“Goodbye Toronto. Our family will cherish you forever,” Strahovski wrote, sharing how welcomed they felt and how many friends they made. “The Handmaid’s Tale brought us to your wonderful country. We didn’t just fly in and out to do a job. We lived here with our kids & doggy… It certainly is bittersweet to be leaving for the last time.”

Strahovski channeled her motherhood experience in her Handmaid’s Tale role

In 2022, Strahovski’s villainous Handmaid’s Tale character, Serena Joy, became a mother for the first time as the actress was welcoming her second son in real life.

“It’s been very personal to me,” Strahovski told ABC’s On the Red Carpet at the series’ season 5 finale party in November 2022. “It’s a whole journey about motherhood … Being a mom myself and having a son who’s 11 months old and just started walking, it was really amazing to go through this process and do a birth on camera.”

Strahovski added that working on a birth scene that was “realistic” and wasn’t “romanticized” was important to her.

Still, the experience didn’t change the way Strahovski sees her manipulative on-screen counterpart.

“I don’t think it has changed the way I think about Serena,” she told Katie Couric Media. “It has really just inspired the emotions in playing that desperation to have her baby, to regret the decision of giving her baby away, the need and the primal desire to have the baby returned to Serena.”

Strahovski loves traveling with her kids

Strahovski, Loden and their three sons have had lots of adventures together, from taking the kids to France in July 2022 to visiting hot springs in the Eastern Sierras in June 2023. However, their favorite way to travel appears to be by camper van. 

“Vanlife. Happy place. On the road,” Strahovski wrote alongside a slideshow of photos of her kids playing on the bank of a serene lake and cooking on a pop-up stove.

Other adventures have included visiting the snowy mountains at June Lake, Calif., seeing the rock formations in Sedona, Ariz. and driving their van from Toronto back to California.

Strahovski hopes to raise her sons to be “accepting of all people”

Strahovski told Katie Couric Media in 2019 that she hopes to raise her boys in such a way that they’ll “be nothing like any of the characters in Gilead.”

“The show has definitely opened my eyes more to clarify for myself what feminism is,” she said of The Handmaid’s Tale. “And how we do live in a world that treats people not equally. Not just women, but people of different cultural backgrounds, religious backgrounds and the list goes on.”

Strahovski concluded, “I am inspired to raise my son in a way that is accepting of all people.”