Baby on the way! Jessica Batten and her husband, Dr. Benjamin McGrath, are expecting their first child together.
“New Year, Same Me, New Mom! 🤰✨ Sending the best wishes and blessings your way in 2023 🙏✨ We’re excited and humbled to share we will welcome our baby into the world and into our growing family in early June,” the Love Is Blind alum, 38, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, January 5, alongside several photos of McGrath, 36, posing with his hands on her stomach.
Several of Batten’s fellow Netflix personalities shared their excitement in the comments section.
“Omggggg yayyyy congrats!!,” wrote Giannina Gibelli. Kenny Barnes also chimed in with a message of support, writing, “No way! Congratulations!!! ❤️”
The expectant father, for his part, commented: “Ahhh!! 😂 love you! You’re the cutest little 🤰.”
Batten introduced fans to McGrath in July 2020. “He actually contacted me on Instagram, and at the time, Instagram was such a tough place for me to go, so I had handed it off to a good girlfriend of mine,” she recalled to Refinery 29 during summer 2021.
She added: “She was on there kind of swiping left, swiping right on different guys who were coming into the DMs. We ended up meeting up one night, and the next day we went on a bike ride, and the rest is history. This was back in March of last year, so it’s been about a year and a half. And it’s been really amazing.”
In September 2021, the foot-and-ankle surgeon popped the question to the former reality star after more than one year of dating, the wellness influencer revealed via her Instagram at the time. One year later, the twosome revealed that they’d secretly tied the knot in August 2022.
“Mr. & Mrs.,” Batten captioned an Instagram post of photos from the nuptials.
She later explained that although the pair had originally planned for a grand wedding ceremony, COVID-19 postponements changed their plans.
“Amidst COVID and with family health and logistics with travel, we found ourselves between a rock and a hard place in trying to plan the wedding in 2022,” the couple told Brides magazine in September 2022. “We tried to make it all work. We considered pushing out our date or moving the location to Chicago. Ultimately, we decided that we needed more time to pull off the massive celebration that we thought was worthy for our family and friends.”
Batten met her beau one day before Los Angeles went into lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. Prior to finding love with the doctor, the former Netflix personality appeared on the first season of the pod-based dating series, which was filmed in late 2018 before airing in February 2020. She and Mark Cuevas got engaged before he eventually walked out of their televised nuptials during the finale.
While this is Batten’s first child, she has spoken before about “learning to be a parent,” through being around McGrath’s two children from a previous relationship — Poppy and Ethan.
“It’s been awesome and three for the price of one for me,” the California resident told People in October 2021. “I didn’t know this would be in my future, but I couldn’t imagine my life without them. They’re so super special to me.”
She continued: “It’s a lot of sacrifice, but it’s so rewarding. After being by myself for so long, or just me and [my dog] Payton, now having them, it’s just a whole different perspective.”
The “Unsettled” podcast host added that being a step-parent made her “more excited about the little things now.”
“We went on the train one time to a Padres game, and for me, that’s not super exciting, but seeing them experiencing it for the first time, it’s just a whole new level of excitement for me because I get to see them having that joy,” Batten shared.
