Shawn Booth is officially a dad with the arrival of his first baby with Audrey “Dre” Joseph.
Booth shared a glimpse of the newborn’s feet via his Instagram Story on Wednesday, December 13. “Baby Booth arrived yesterday and is healthy & perfect,” he gushed, adding a red heart emoji and a crying emoji. “Mom is an absolute rockstar & did incredible!”
He continued: “Everything went super smooth and we couldn’t be more grateful. Best feeling in the world.”
The Bachelorette alum announced in July that he was expecting his first child with a mystery woman.
“December 12, baby Booth on their way,” he revealed during an episode of his “In the Booth With Shawn Booth” podcast. “It’s happening. I’m gonna be a father. The mother is somebody who I’ve been close with for years. We’ve had a relationship and we’ve dated. This just isn’t some random girl I met at Honky Tonk Central. This is a big surprise for the both of us. [To be] open and honest, this wasn’t something that was planned. But it will be and is the most beautiful surprise I’ve ever had in my life. And it’s gonna be very special. I can’t wait. I’m ready. I’m 37 years old. I’ve always wanted to be a dad.”
Later that month, Booth confirmed on his podcast that Joseph — a photographer whom he met five years earlier when he hired her to take pictures of his gym — is the mother of his child. She then detailed some of the difficulties of her pregnancy.
“I wasn’t perpetually nauseous, which a lot of women are for, you know, that first 12 weeks,” Joseph, 30, said. “But when I would start getting sick, I had a hard time stopping being sick. So, it would be a full day of spending a lot of time in the bathroom and having [a] hard time eating and keeping things down. [I] had to go get fluids a couple of times [and] ended up in the ER a couple times. They couldn’t find a heartbeat, [which was] a whole other big drama. But we’ve made it through.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Booth and Joseph disagreed about what role he should play in the delivery room. “I think he should go down there and cut the cord and be there and watch,” she said.
Booth, for his part, was hesitant to be that involved. “I’ve always said, for my whole life, ‘I can’t watch that,’” he noted. “I just want to stay by the head to give some moral support. But I feel like every dad I talked to [makes me think] I’m just, like, gonna have to go in there and just frickin’ get some gloves on and help that thing out.”
Prior to welcoming his first child with Joseph, Booth appeared on season 11 of The Bachelorette, resulting in an engagement to Kaitlyn Bristowe that lasted from 2015 to 2018. After their split, Bristowe, 38, moved on with Jason Tartick, but the pair confirmed in August that they had called off their engagement.
