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Candiace Dillard-Bassett is pregnant!
Weeks after confirming she will not be returning for the ninth season of The Real Housewives of Potomac, Candiace, 37, confirmed that she and her husband, Chris Bassett, 46, are expecting their first child together this fall.
“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 revealed to Entertainment Tonight on April 15. “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.”
In recent years, Candiace has chronicled her baby journey on RHOP, taking viewers inside meetings with fertility specialists and discussing the prep work involved with in vitro fertilization (IVF). And earlier this year, she was successfully implanted with an embryo the two of them froze two years ago.
“I think we were both kind of content to have them just sit there until my ‘cut-off date,’” Candiace admitted, giving a nod to Chris’ desire to have a child with her before he turned 50.
“But then I got the itch,” she said. “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 continued. “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.”
Immediately after her implantation in January, Candiace was filled with anxiety as she awaited the news of whether or not she was pregnant. Then, when she got the call from her doctor, who confirmed she was, in fact, with child, Candiace said she felt amazing.
“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,” she gushed.
While Candiace and Chris created one male and one female embryo, only the doctors know what they’re having at this point.
“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,” Chris explained.
“It’s so cool that you literally have no idea what you’re getting,” Candiace agreed. “What their personality is, although at our last sonogram, signs are pointing to them being more like Chris than me.”
According to Candiace, her baby is “laidback” like her spouse and won’t do much moving around when it comes to the sonograms.
“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!” she recalled.
As the couple prepares to welcome their first child together, Chris says he’ll be doing his best to remind himself that while he has three older children, this is Candiace’s first time becoming a parent.
“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,” he shared as Candiace said there was “comfort” in knowing Chris has already gone through the process.
As she looks ahead to the moments she’ll share with her child, Candiace said she’s excited to support them in whatever they want to do.
“I’m just excited to meet them,” she noted. “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 continued. “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.”
As for her fears of becoming a mom, Candiace considered her child’s elementary education, joking that she’s “terrified of math homework.”
At this point in her pregnancy, Candiace said she’s just starting to see signs of a baby bump, although it could be mistaken for a “food baby.”
“I’m bloated … all the time!” she stated. “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.”
As for her thoughts on more kids, Candiace confirmed she and Chris have another embryo as she noted that she’s taking things “day by day” for now.
“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,” she explained. “So, we’ll see. Let me pop one out and see.”
