Jenna Bush Hager had a sweet Easter surprise to share on Monday morning: the news that she is pregnant with her third child, a baby boy.
The 37-year-old made the happy announcement live on the Today show, after she and her husband Henry Hager shared the joyful news with their two daughters, Mila, six, and Poppy, three, on Sunday by hiding the news in the little girls’ Easter eggs.
And while the little girls were both stunned and overjoyed at the news – Jenna revealed that they weren’t the only ones to be surprised by the pregnancy, explaining: ‘We weren’t really trying to get pregnant.
‘We had some fertility issues with Poppy so we just… you know… it was a date night! Sorry mom!’
Jenna, who is the daughter of former President George W Bush and his wife Laura, added that the news had come as a ‘shock’ to both her and Henry, 40, but she said that they are both overjoyed with the news.
‘We’re thrilled, it is a shock, it’s a lot, but we’re grateful,’ she said. ‘[The girls] are so happy, I mean to the point where they’re telling strangers.
‘Henry all of a sudden will be like, “Wait what are we doing?”‘
The Today host also admitted that she is ‘very pregnant’ and confessed that she had no idea how she had managed to keep the news a secret for so long.
‘I am very pregnant… I don’t know how I hid this!’ she joked, before revealing that her close friend and co-host Savannah Guthrie already knew, because the two had been working on a dance challenge together, during which Jenna said she had needed ‘seven or eight sports bras to hold these babies in’.
Savannah, 47, was actually the one who teed up Jenna to share the news on the show, asking her pal about the ‘sweet surprise’ she had given her girls over the Easter weekend.
‘Mila and Poppy got a little something extra in their Easter baskets this year…’ Savannah said, before former first daughter Jenna confessed: ‘They got something extra, it’s pretty sweet…’
Her hint left colleague Craig Melvin open-mouthed in shock, before he exclaimed: ‘Wait a minute, what are we doing here?
‘Another…? What? You are kidding me! Oh my god!’
‘I’m only telling because Mila and Poppy found out yesterday in their Easter baskets,’ Jenna tearfully joked, before adding: ‘They told the man behind me on the airplane, they told the people at church…’
On the fourth hour of Today, Jenna shared more news about the pregnancy, doing a gender reveal for viewers that saw her opening up a large wrapped gift that was filled with blue boy balloons.
She also shared a video of the moment that her daughters Mila and Poppy found out they were going to be big sisters, with their parents hiding the news inside Easter eggs for the little girls to find.
‘The Easter bunny brought them an egg with a big reveal, which is actually quite fitting when you know how it happens!’ the soon-to-be mother-of-three joked.
In the video, Jenna can be heard asking her daughters, ‘What do you guys want the very most in the whole world?’ to which six-year-old Mila replies, ‘Toys!’
‘No not a toy, what else have you been praying for?’ Jenna asks again, to which Mila responds excitedly: ‘A baby?’
The delighted little girl then opened up a silver Easter egg that was sitting on the table in front of her, and pulled out a piece of paper on which was written: ‘A baby brother on whom you will boast.’
‘Where’s the baby brother?’ a stunned Mila then asked. ‘In the tummy? For real?’
‘Where’s the baby brother?’ a stunned Mila then asked. ‘In the tummy? For real?’
Her little sister Poppy then chimed in: ‘Can I see, can I see? How do I take it out?’ before running up to her mother’s stomach and yelling, ‘Baby, baby, baby!’
Both little girls then began dancing around the house in their nightgowns, cheering happily, with Jenna revealing that the youngsters couldn’t wait to share the news with everyone around them.
‘They told every single stranger!’ Jenna said. ‘We were in Virginia for Easter and Poppy went into Sunday School and she told the Sunday School teacher that I was pregnant with an alien. So she’s taking it well! She saw the sonogram picture that does look alien-ish.
Jenna, who co-hosted the fourth hour of Today on Monday with former NBC star Meredith Vieira, also joked that she decided to share the news because she ‘couldn’t hold it in one minute longer’ – adding that she had been concealing her baby bump with ‘lots of Spanx’.
She also revealed that this pregnancy has felt slightly different to her other two, explaining that she has experienced less sickness than she did with Poppy and Mila.
The unborn baby boy will be the both grandson for both Jenna and Henry’s parents, with Jenna explaining: ‘It’s the first boy grandchild on both sides. Henry’s brother has three girls. So his dad is [excited].’
‘We have the attitude that a healthy baby is all that matters.’
When asked by Meredith whether she feels ‘prepared for a third baby’, Jenna simply responded, ‘How do you prepare yourself?’
‘You don’t really!’ Meredith, 65, who also has three children, added. ‘You just tell yourself that it’s going to be OK!’
Jenna’s happy news comes mere days after her 54-year-old co-host revealed that she had adopted a second baby.
Hoda, 54, called into the Today on Tuesday to announce the news, announcing that she and her partner Joel Schiffman had adopted a baby girl to give their two-year-old daughter, Haley Joy, a sister.
During the emotional call, the new mother-of-two tearfully told them that she and Joel had named their new daughter Hope Catherine. Their little girl was born last weekend and welcomed into her new home days later.
On Wednesday’s show, Savannah and Jenna admitted that they didn’t waste any time stopping by their co-stars home to see the baby.
‘Jenna and I went right over right after the show. I don’t even know if we were invited, but we went in and we saw the baby, Savannah said. ‘She’s adorable. Hoda is doing great and is just so happy and pleased. It’s really wonderful.’
Jenna noted that Hoda’s eldest daughter, Haley, ‘was so in awe of her baby sister.’
‘It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,’ she said, and Savannah agreed, explaining that every time they talk about Hope and Haley she gets ‘chills.’
‘Haley was so sweet. She couldn’t love her baby sister more,’ Savannah said. ‘She literally gets under Hope’s bassinet because she wants to be close to her.’
‘The fact that they wanted to be so close to each other,’ Jenna added. ‘This is what Hoda’s prayed for. And she actually has prayed for a baby sister for Haley because she and her sister are so close.’
Haley’s close bond with her new sister reminded Jenna of her own daughters, Mila, five, and Poppy, three.
Jenna explained that when she was leaving her home at the ‘crack of dawn’ this morning, she realized Poppy wasn’t in her bedroom.
‘I had this kind of panic feeling. She wasn’t in the bathroom. She wasn’t in the living [room]. We don’t have a very big apartment,’ she recounted.
‘It took me about 27 seconds to realize she was nowhere to be seen. And I had this feeling that she was just walking down Fifth Avenue.’
Jenna pulled out her cellphone to show a picture of Poppy sound asleep in her big sister Mila’s bed.
‘This is the image I woke up to. Two little towheads asleep in a tiny, tiny little bed,’ she said.
Savannah said Jenna texted her the image right before she was about to go on air, causing her to tear up at an inopportune time.
‘I was like, what are you doing making me cry right before the news headlines? But it’s so sweet. They really love each other,’ she said.
‘Sisterhood is pretty amazing,’ Jenna agreed.
Last week, Jenna also paid tribute to her grandmother Barbara on the one-year anniversary of the former first lady’s death.
The Today host took to Instagram on Wednesday morning to share a photo of her beloved ‘Ganny’, a picture of a smiling Barbara that featured her birth date and the date of her death, April 17, 2018.
‘Missing you Ganny today and everyday. One year without our enforcer—hard believe. You made us better and we love you more than tongue can tell [sic],’ Jenna captioned the photo.
Barbara passed away last year at the age of 92 after years of battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart problems.
Her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, died just seven months later.
Jenna opened up about the anniversary of her grandmother’s death on the fourth hour of the Today show.
The mother-of-two admitted she hadn’t realized a year had passed until her father, former President George W. Bush, and her aunt reminded her on their family text message chain.
‘This morning, my aunt and dad pointed out it’s been one year since we lost my precious grandma, which I cannot believe because she was such a force,’ she told Savannah. ‘So I woke up thinking of her this morning.’
Barbara’s family referred to her as ‘the enforcer’ because of her strength, and Jenna said she still follows her grandmother’s teachings.
‘I just am so proud to have had a grandmother who lived fearlessly. Her life wasn’t always easy, but she raised us to be better,’ Jenna said.
‘Even now, when I’m about to do something impulsive, I think, “Would my grandmother like that?” And usually, if the answer’s no, I hold back.’
SOURCE: Daily Mail, Charle Lankston
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