After announcing her exit from 'The Real Housewives of Potomac,' the Bravo star shares the exciting start of her next chapter with ET.
Candiace Dillard Bassett is upgrading from cry-angles to baby wipes.
The Real Housewives of Potomac star, 37, exclusively tells ET she's expecting her first child with husband Chris Bassett, 46.
"I am about 13 weeks ... so just about into the second trimester. It's been weird, but also really wonderful, I think, to keep it kind of to ourselves to this point," Candiace shares with ET. "Our immediate family knows, my mom -- I told my mom on her birthday in February -- my dad knows, [Chris'] parents know, my siblings know and that is my core, best friend group, but outside of that it's just been, like, kind of quietly just growing a bun."
The "Drive Back" singer documented some of her journey to motherhood on the Bravo series, filming counseling sessions with fertility specialists and the prep work for in vitro fertilization (IVF); the couple's baby-to-be came from one of the embryos they froze two years ago.
"I think we were both kind of content to have them just sit there until my 'cut-off date,'" Candiace confesses, referencing the window Chris gave her to "bleep or get off the pot" when it came to babies; she needed to be pregnant by the time he turned 50.
"But then I got the itch," she says, as the couple hit the under-five-year mark on that countdown clock. "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."
"I kind of woke up and realized that I was never going to be 100 percent ready," she continues. "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."
Candiace underwent implantation in January, leading to an anxiety filled two weeks of waiting to find out if the procedure was successful. She kept busy with a trip to Los Angeles for the GRAMMYs, which delayed finding out by a few days, as she wanted to be back home with Chris when their doctor broke the news.
"Our doctor called us at 8 a.m. and she tells us that we're pregnant," Candiace shares. "We waited and waited and waited all this time, so to finally hear that, after those two weeks, the process has worked after a year of doing the shots. ... 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."
The pair don't yet know whether they're having a boy or a girl; they had one male embryo and one female embryo.
"So, the doctors know," Chris explains. "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."
The two do plan to find out the sex of the child before Candiace gives birth, though.
"It's so cool that you literally have no idea what you're getting," Candiace says, "What their personality is, although at our last sonogram, signs are pointing to them being more like Chris than me."
"Is that a bad thing?" Chris asks.
"Laidback," Candiace clarifies. "We're trying to get them to move for the sonogram and they were, like, being camera shy, because before the camera came out they were moving around and they pulled out the camera and they were like, nope!"
Candiace and Chris' bundle of joy will join his three kids from previous relationships.
"That's something I gotta keep in mind as we go through this process, right? That I've done this three times already; this is her first time," Chris reflects. "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. 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."
"There is a lot of comfort in knowing that he's done this three times, with two boys and a girl, so he's seen both sides," Candiace says.
As for what's she most looking forward to about baby, Candiace is already thinking far into the future.
"I'm excited to just support them ... in whatever they want to do," she muses, starting to tear up. "What were we watching? Something about, like, kids playing soccer or sports or something, and I thought to myself, like, 'Oh my gosh. What if my son or daughter wants to play football?' I'm not an outdoor person. I'm not a sports person -- I can only tell you when there's a touchdown happening -- but if my kid wanted to play football, I would get a big mosquito net and be outside, you know, cheering and yelling and ready to fight the referee! So I'm just excited to meet them."
As for fears, Candiace also jumps ahead a bit.
"Beyond when the baby comes and it's time for school, I'm terrified of math homework," she cracks. "But I guess with the birth, I guess I'm just looking forward to meeting them. 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."
"I'm looking forward to the community, the mom community," she adds. "It's a space I've kind of been peering into from the outside, most of my friends and my cousins have kids. I've helped raise and change diapers and babysit all of my cousins' kids, so it's just gonna be fun to be a part of that community and, you know, to learn and grow as a member now."
Candiace is just starting to show, but admits her bump often looks like a "food baby."
"I'm bloated ... all the time!" she laments. "It's so annoying. ... I've been able to fool people, I think successfully thus far; now people are gonna be walking-- I'll be in the grocery store and they'll be looking for the bump, so I'm excited about that."
Baby arrives this fall; as far as where Chris and Candiace's family heads after that, the two haven't yet decided if they'll add more to the brood after they welcome this little one into the world.
"We do have another embryo in the freezer," Candiace points out to ET. "I'm just kind of taking it day by day. Thankfully, I feel really blessed so far to be just about in my second trimester and I haven't really been super sick. I haven't had, like, super crazy pregnancy symptoms, so that's helpful in thinking about doing it again. But also, it's like, could we just find a wonderful surrogate for the second one? That is on the table, that's an option that some women have the luxury of entertaining. So, we'll see. Let me pop one out and see."
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