‘Homeland’ Star Maury Sterling Welcomes First Child With Wife Alexis

Things might not be going great for his character on Homeland, series star Maury Sterling has something to celebrate in his real life. Sterling and his wife, Alexis, are the proud parents of a new baby boy. As PEOPLE noticed, the announcement was made formally from her Instagram account.

“Welcome to our little bear,” Sterling wrote in the caption. “Ford Bryant Sterling was born this morning at 4:08 a.m. He’s healthy and we cannot thank the staff at [Cedars Sinai] for taking amazing care of us as we bring a tiny human into a pandemic.” She also added an all-caps plea to “PLEASE LOOK INTO DONATING PPE TO YOUR LOCAL HOSPITAL/CLINIC.”

On Sunday, Sterling had posted from his own account that he was lamenting he wouldn’t be there to live-tweet the latest episode of Homeland along with fans, but as he put it, “[Alexis Boozer Sterling] and I are in the hospital to welcome our son into the world.”

It was that very episode of Homeland that confirmed the death of Sterling’s character, Max Piotrowski, with only a few episodes to go before its series finale. While he was shot in the closing seconds of last week’s installment, Sunday’s episode forced Max’s longtime ally, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) to reckon with his loss. Given that Max had been a character since the pilot episode, and appeared in almost every season of the show, his death came as something of a shock.

At least, as much of a shock as it can for a show that regularly kills off its main characters. Back in February, before the premiere of Homeland’s eighth and final season, Sterling spoke about his character’s chances for survival with The Wall Street Journal.

“Nobody is safe,” Sterling explained. “That’s part of what makes it good.”

The final season of Showtime‘s post-9/11 political thriller has also seen the return of actors Nimrat Kaur and Numan Acar, both of whom were regulars in Season 4. Kaur plays Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence member Tasneem Qureshi, with Acar as Taliban leader with a target on his back Haissam Haqqani.

The final few episodes of Homeland will air Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on Showtime.