Ashley Darby, 31, is loving being a new mother to her newborn son, Dean, who was born on July 7, bu when it comes to expanding her family in the future, she’s still cautious. The Real Housewives of Potomac star has been open about her and her 59-year-old husband Michael‘s struggles to conceive before Dean and now that he’s here, she would love a sibling for him, but she understandably still gets a bit “scared” in knowing another struggle is a possibility.
“I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t [scared], I’m trying to be present and in the moment and to savor all the things, the little smiles and everything like that. But at the same time, of course I’m thinking about a sibling for him and you know, what that would look like,” Ashley EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife. “So it definitely scares me a little bit. Certainly, even with Dean, I was very nuts. I found myself just not completely able to really enjoy being pregnant for the first couple of months because I was just so scared that a rug was going to be ripped out from underneath me. And yeah, it was just really hard to emotionally invest myself the way that I wanted to, out of fear.”
Ashley went on to say that she and Michael will most likely start trying for another baby when Dean is around two and more developed to walk, talk and even potty train! “I’m hoping that, maybe within two years he’ll be potty trained and I feel like we’ll be pretty sufficient and have a good rigor as a family, then hopefully we can start trying for baby number two,” she explained.
In addition to talking about a possible second child, Ashley gushed over Dean and how she feels about motherhood. “I actually, I really love it. And it’s everything that I thought it would be and more,” she enthused. “My sister was born when I was 16 so I had a little bit of experience with newborns and infants. But certainly having my own child and being responsible for him has definitely been quite a bit more. It’s amazing, he’s just like a little beam of light. He makes me so happy even when I am incredibly sleep deprived and you know, all these things happening anatomically to my body. I feel just so happy.”
She also revealed that she underwent a hypnosis technique to help with the actual labor when giving birth to Dean. “I did hypnobaby which is using hypnosis, the power of hypnosis to work through the waves as they’re called, of the childbirth. However, I labored for at least eight hours total, like seven and a half hours and around hour four of the contractions, I almost, I was like, ‘I’m going to faint'”, she admitted. “I couldn’t do it, the pain was too strong. I was trying to do my hypnosis but to be honest, I wasn’t as diligent about doing hypnosis as I should have been. So I wasn’t super prepared and I just, I couldn’t handle it anymore and I passed out… and I got the epidural and it was the most amazing thing ever for me. I’m so glad I did it because I was able to get the rest and then it when it was time to push, I had energy to push, which I pushed for about an hour, and Dean was born at 9:17 am.”
When it came time to name Dean, Ashley said it came to her in a dream. “I dreamt of this name Dean and I just was like, ‘That’s the baby’s name'”, she said. “I woke up and I had thought of Dean on my mind, this is the baby. And of course the first person I told was my mom and I was like, ‘Mom, I think I have a name for the baby. I think his name is going to be Dean.’ And my mom says, ‘Actually, that was what I was going to name your brother before I called him Zachary.’ It really was and Michael took some convincing of the reason why and I was so set on it that I wasn’t really going to budge.”
Lastly, Ashley said that Michael, who also has two adult children from a previous marriage, has been adapting to his newborn son very well. “It’s the most amazing thing to see the way that Michael interacts with Dean because when Dean was first born, he looked like me. And even over the last few months, his face has changed so much and I definitely have a little Michael on my hands,” the proud wife and mom said.