Golden Bachelor alum Amy Kaplan is a grandmother again!
Us exclusively confirms Amy’s daughter Allie Kaplan Rutstein welcomed her first baby, daughter Romy Madeline Rutstein, on Friday, September 4, but the family experienced a terrifying few moments before they could properly celebrate her arrival.
“It was a scare to first meet Romy,” Amy tells Us. “She pooped in utero. When she was born, there was no cry. She did not cry. She was limp like a rag doll.”
Amy recalls, “The nurses, all of a sudden, they’re tapping, tapping, tapping. I’m freaking out. [My daughter] Lexi’s freaking out. Allie’s like, ‘She’s not crying.’ So they whisked her away.”
While Allie knew before giving birth that Romy had passed stool in utero, Amy says her daughter wasn’t expecting the newborn to need immediate intervention after her arrival.
“I guess she was prepared, but [she] didn’t know the seriousness that the baby was going to have to get the fluid sucked out of her lungs and put on oxygen and everything,” Amy explains.
Amy says the medical team immediately began working on Romy.
“It felt like hours, but it was probably under two minutes,” she says. “Thank God she cried. It was really scary. And she’s healthy and perfect, but it was scary. She was not breathing.”
The frightening start quickly gave way to happy news. Amy says Allie and her husband, Jarret Rutstein, have since taken Romy to the pediatrician and were reassured that their newborn is doing well.
“They said she’s perfect,” Amy tells Us. “So that was a big relief after everything that happened, because it was a little bit traumatic with her coming into the world for the first couple of minutes. But everything’s good.”
With Romy thriving at home, Amy can now joke about her granddaughter’s dramatic entrance.
“This was a little bit scarier, but she’s absolutely fine. The baby’s perfect,” she says. “And you know what I said to Allie? She’s a feisty little thing with drama and personality, because she already pooped on her mother.”
Romy arrived at 9:55 p.m. on Friday, weighing 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Her middle name, Madeline, carries special significance for the family.
“Madeline was my mother’s name,” Amy explains. “Actually, in the Jewish religion, you name your child, if you want, after a relative that has passed away. And so they took it as a middle name.”
As for how Allie landed on Romy? Amy jokes that the explanation is much simpler: “Romy is because it sounds really cute.”
Allie, meanwhile, exclusively tells Us that she and Romy are “doing really great” as she adjusts to becoming a first-time mom.
“She’s absolutely perfect! I think I’m still kind of in shock that she’s actually here. It’s so surreal,” Allie says. “I remember looking at her and thinking, ‘Wait, this is my baby.’ It was the craziest, most overwhelming feeling in the best way. I couldn’t have dreamed her better.”
Romy’s arrival makes Amy a grandmother for the second time in less than three months. Allie’s identical twin, Lexi Kaplan Giudice, welcomed her first baby, son Jordan Arthur “Jordy” Giudice, with husband Jeff Giudice on June 18. Jordy arrived via C-section, weighing 9 pounds, 11 ounces.
The two deliveries couldn’t have been more different.
“This was a natural childbirth versus a C-section,” Amy says of Romy’s birth. “So the C-section seemed to have gone a little smoother. This was a little bit scarier, but she’s absolutely fine. The baby’s perfect.”
Amy is now getting to watch her identical twin daughters experience motherhood at the same time.
“Growing up as twins, it always felt like I had a built-in best friend, and we wanted to do the same for our kids,” Allie previously told Us.
“It’s also so special because since we’re identical twins, even though the babies are technically cousins, genetically they will be half-siblings.”
Though Lexi had a head start on motherhood, the twins are already settling into their roles with ease.
“It’s pretty natural, though, to both girls,” Amy says of seeing her daughters raise their babies. “They’re very, very instinctual. I told them they’re both really amazing mothers.”
Lexi, meanwhile, says being a few months ahead in motherhood has allowed her to help Allie navigate the newborn stage.
“I’ve been able to help her through things like breastfeeding and pumping,” Lexi tells Us. “She had a little difficulty in the beginning, and I kept telling her, ‘Don’t worry, this is so normal. It feels hard in the beginning, and then you figure it out.’”
Amy is also settling into life as a hands-on grandmother. After Jordy was born, she told Us that she planned to be “very, very close” to her grandchildren, and that hasn’t changed now that she has two.
“I’m just very hands-on with them,” she says. “I just love holding them and being with them.”
And the bond between the cousins may already be starting to form. When Jordy met Romy, Amy put their little feet together and watched his reaction.
“It was precious,” she recalls. “And he was very alert. I think he knows what’s going on.”
Seeing the infants together reminded Amy of Allie and Lexi as babies. “I remember when the girls were first born, they ended up grabbing their little hands together and smiling at each other,” she says. “Jordy was smiling at her.”
For Amy, welcoming two grandchildren in less than three months has made an already close-knit family feel even more complete. After raising Allie and Lexi side by side, she now gets to watch the next generation grow up together.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Amy tells Us. “It’s like I’m having twins almost at the same time.”
