Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon couldn’t wait to tell their Bachelor Nation family that they’re expecting! While speaking to ET’s Katie Krause, the couple revealed which Bachelor alum they first told they had a baby on the way, before sharing the news publicly earlier this month.
“I told Ben, mainly because Ben and I do the podcast every week together and I just wasn’t feeling good, and I just wanted him to know if I was seeming a little bit less energetic than usual,” Iaconetti, 33, said of Ben Higgins with whom she hosts the The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast. “There was a reason behind it.”
After Ben learned the news, Tanner Tolbert and Jade Roper, Iaconetti and Haibon’s fellow Bachelor in Paradise couple, were next in the queue. Telling them, Haibon said, was “very exciting because we’re very close with them.”
That reveal was followed by one to BIP alum Dean Unglert, with whom Haibon hosts the Help! I Suck at Dating With Dean and Jared podcast. Iaconetti shared that current Bachelorette co-host Tayshia Adams cried when she heard the news, but Haibon said it was a FaceTime call to his Bachelorette castmate, Nick Viall, that was his favorite.
“We called Nick and it was the most Nick thing of all time, because, first of all, he was outside with his shirt off and I was like, ‘This is perfect,'” Haibon, 32 recalled. “And then he answered the phone, he’s like, ‘You guys are pregnant, aren’t you? Why else would you FaceTime me right now?'”
“It was so funny,” Haibon continued. “So we talked about Ashley being pregnant for about 90 seconds and then we started talking about his podcast. It was the most Nick thing of all time. I love it… There’s something in my heart that gives me joy when some things don’t change.”
Iaconetti is 11 weeks into her pregnancy, a milestone she reached after seven months of trying to conceive.
“I think it was frustrating because you’re like, ‘Oh my god. We’re doing everything right. How could this not be happening?'” Iaconetti told ET. “But I wasn’t at the real concern point. I was at the, when I get my period, I get a little disappointed point, but I wasn’t really concerned.”
The couple, who tied the knot in 2019, had just decided to get Haibon’s sperm tested when they found out Iaconetti was pregnant, though her husband didn’t quite believe it at first.
“She was so good at keeping track of her ovulation and scheduling everything. She wore the bracelets and had everything on her computer, and then it was the one month that everything was a little off,” he explained. “This was after seven months. So we thought, ‘Well, it’s definitely not happening this month.’ And it happened.”
Iaconetti, likewise, didn’t think she was pregnant before the test came back positive.
“My boobs were so sore, more than just pre-period sore, so I was like, ‘All right, I’m going to take a test. It’s going to be negative, so I’m not even going to tell him that I’m going to take a test,'” she recalled. “But then when I moseyed along and looked at the results, it was a faint line, space, second line. I was like, ‘That’s silly.’ I told him. He didn’t believe it for a long time. He didn’t even believe it after multiple positive tests.”
Though she’s thrilled to be expecting, Iaconetti has felt sick throughout much of her pregnancy.
“Poor Ash has been throwing up constantly and constantly nauseous,” Haibon said. “… It’s been tough. I feel terrible because it’s our kid and yet I’m not any different… I don’t feel sick. My daily life hasn’t really changed all that much, so I’m just trying to be here for Ashley as much as possible.”
“There’s almost a little guilt cause I don’t feel that connected with the baby yet,” he added. “The only time I did feel truly, really connected was when we went for the first doctor’s appointment, we saw the ultrasound… I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is very real.'”
While Iaconetti noted that her husband “feels kind of helpless,” something she finds “sweet because I’ll be sick and he’s like, ‘What can I do to help?’ I’m like, ‘Literally nothing,'” she said that he does assist her in other ways.
“Yeah, I get Slurpees. I get chocolate cake. I fulfill the cravings,” he told ET. “Other than that, it’s like this cycle of, ‘Hey, do you need crackers? You want some plain pasta? Ginger ale?'”
Cake is off Iaconetti’s craving list now, because, she said, she’s thrown it up “too many times.” In its place are chocolate chip pancakes and cream soda.
Amid her sickness, Iaconetti is trying to look forward to things to come, including finding out the baby’s sex later this week. While Iaconetti is hoping for a girl, both she and Haibon have a “gut feeling” that they have a boy on the way.
In fact, the couple said that they have a name picked should their guess be correct.
“I’ve had this name [picked out] since I was, like, 20 and Jared really liked it,” Iaconetti explained, with Haibon adding that they have “figured out the middle name as well.”
“We love movies, and there’s a little nod to a couple of films in the name, which is ridiculous, but also so meaningful to us,” Haibon said. “It’s a great name and we love it. Nobody would know, except for us.”
Aside from Iaconetti’s pregnancy, the couple is focused on opening Audrey’s Coffee House and Lounge, a coffee shop and martini bar in Haibon’s home state of Rhode Island. The venture, which is set to open Labor Day weekend and will feature Higgins’ brand of coffee, is named after Iaconetti’s mother, and is fully a family affair.
“I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for 10 years of my life and I have always dreamt of owning and creating my own businesses, so now it’s come to fruition,” Haibon told ET. “… I really want it to be a family business. I want my dad to be co-owner… My mom’s going to work there, and it should be a lot of fun.”
After their business is open, the couple will be eagerly awaiting the arrival of their little one, though Iaconetti is admittedly “worried about labor and delivery.”
“I’m looking forward to [having] the baby out of me. I know it sounds horrible. I mean, of course you’re excited to feel it kick. I’m sure once it starts to feel like there’s an actual baby in there, I’ll feel more connected and less annoyed at the discomfort,” she said, before adding of the delivery itself, “I’m not very physically strong. I don’t have a lot of pain tolerance. I’m going to have an epidural, for sure, but I don’t look forward to that part whatsoever.”
Once their baby has arrived, the couple is looking forward to playdates with Tolbert and Roper’s three kids, Emmy, 3, Brooks, 1, and Reed, 8 months. Get-togethers are also being planned with Bella, 3, and Charlie, 1, the two kids BIP alum Carly Waddell shares with her ex, Evan Bass.
When they’re at home with their newest addition, both Haibon and Iaconetti are going to split the work of the newborn 50/50.
“I’m assuming I’ll be the one getting up throughout the night, because she’s a huge struggle bus, right now. It’s the least I could do is to get up in the middle of the night and help the baby sleep,” Haibon said.
As their child grows, both Haibon and Iaconetti agreed that the former would be “the strict one.”
“Jared definitely will be a little bit more disciplinarian,” Iaconetti said. “We can just tell by the way we are with our dog.”
Both parents-to-be, though, will be equally loving toward their child, Haibon told ET.
“Ashley is such a loving and kind-hearted person. She just pours her heart out, which is one of the reasons why people love her on the show, because she’s so transparent and honest, and just loves so hard,” he said. “I have no doubt that she’s going to be that way towards our child.”
Through it all, the couple is looking forward to raising their kid in Rhode Island, where there’s a “sense of community.”
“My family is there. My parents are there. My grandfather is still there. My cousins are there. I have extended family there,” Haibon said. “It’s really nice, because her family is down in northern Virginia, so it’s really not that far. When we were in Los Angeles, we were away from everybody, and now we’re only an hour flight from her family. We’re in the midst of mine.”
“It’s really nice,” he continued. “My sister is pregnant. My cousin has little ones, so there is this sense of, not only community, but family that I truly missed. Now that we’re back in it, it’s something that I don’t ever want to give up.”
