Candiace Dillard is going to be a mom!
The “Real Housewives of Potomac” alum announced that she and husband Chris Bassett are expecting their first child together on Monday.
“I am about 13 weeks … so just about into the second trimester,” the reality TV star, 37, told “Entertainment Tonight.”
“It’s been weird, but also really wonderful, I think, to keep it kind of to ourselves to this point.”
The “Drive Back” singer said she is just barely showing, so her bump often looks like a “food baby.”
“I’m bloated … all the time!” she told the outlet. “It’s so annoying. … I’ve been able to fool people, I think successfully thus far; now people are gonna be talking — I’ll be in the grocery store and they’ll be looking for the bump, so I’m excited about that.”
The soon-to-be mother — who announced her departure from “RHOP” last month — and Bassett had only told their “immediate family” and her “best friend group.”
“Outside of that it’s just been, like, kind of quietly just growing a bun,” she said, noting that she hasn’t had “super crazy pregnancy symptoms” or bad morning sickness.
Dillard and Bassett wed in 2018 and started IVF treatments a few years later, which was documented on the hit Bravo series.
Although the pair was unsure if they wanted kids, Dillard froze her eggs after her husband told her he didn’t want to have kids after he turned 50.
“I think we were both kind of content to have them just sit there until my ‘cut-off date,'” she said, noting that the couple’s growing baby came from one of the embryos they froze two years ago.
However, once Bassett hit his mid-40s, Dillard said she got “the itch.”
“I always wondered, like, how would I know when I was ready? And I always felt like a part of my anxiety was that I wasn’t sure that I would know, and when I knew, it was undeniable.”
She continued, “I kind of woke up and realized that I was never going to be 100 percent ready. I just had to … trust the process and trust my doctors and stop being afraid and just do it. So once we decided together that we were going to do that -— together — it just was kind of all moving by faith from there.”
Dillard underwent implantation in January and the couple found out they were pregnant two weeks later.
“I did two rounds of egg retrieval. To do the shots in your stomach, I had to do the shots in my bum bum every day — which was not always fun — and to finally have it all pay off was amazing,” she said of the lengthy process.
Although the pair had one male embryo and one female embryo, they ultimately let the doctors choose the sex — and are waiting to find out if they’re having a boy or a girl until right before she gives birth.
“We did all the tests. Obviously, we wanted something healthy … and I was like, listen, let’s just take the highest graded egg and we’ll put it in there, and this is the one surprise of this whole experience, that we don’t know yet,” Bassett explained.
While Bassett is already dad to three kids from a previous relationship, he has been trying to remind himself that this is Dillard’s “first time” navigating parenthood.
“I’ve gotta make sure for me that I stay engaged, ’cause I’ve gotta be super supportive for her and she’s gonna need that all the way through,” he told the outlet. “So, that’s kind of what I’m looking forward to, just to share it and experience it with Candiace and just see where it goes.”
Although the journey toward motherhood has been an entirely new experience for Dillard, she found “comfort in knowing that [Bassetts] done this three times, with two boys and a girl, so he’s seen both sides.”
The Bravolebrty also told the outlet that her excitement easily outweighs her nerves about giving birth.
“I’m excited to just support them … in whatever they want to do,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“I guess I’m just looking forward to meeting them,” she added. “Like, I always have these dreams — I have dreams, like, every other night of just me holding the baby, but … all you see is the head. So I’m excited to just hold them.”
Their little one arrives this fall and — despite having “another embryo in the freezer” — the pair is waiting to decide if they want a second child.
“I’m just kind of taking it day by day,” Dillard said, noting that the pair have also discussed using “a wonderful surrogate for the second one.”
“Let me pop one out and see,” she said.
