Dancing With The Stars Pros Jenna Johnson And Val Chmerkovskiy Are Expecting Their First Child
Published on July 15, 2022.A tiny dancer is on the way!
Beloved Dancing With the Stars pros Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy have revealed that they are expecting their first child together.
The pair, who married in 2019 opened up about their big news to PEOPLE, revealing how Jenna found out, how she told Val and her pregnancy journey so far.
“We got home [from a trip to Cabo] and about two weeks later I was like, ‘Wait a minute, my boobs are feeling very big and very sore. I haven’t started my period yet.’ So I peed on a stick and immediately it just turned positive,” Johnson, 28, said. “The shock and just disbelief was insane. I couldn’t believe it because it it wasn’t an easy journey for us to get pregnant.”
“But everybody tells you, ‘When you just relax and you don’t put the stress on yourself, it happens for you.’ That’s exactly what happened,” she added. “I think it was exactly when it was meant to be. Our little baby was created with a lot of love. It all seems so magical and meant to be.”
As for telling her husband, 36, she relied on his favorite sneakers. “I went and I got these little Baby Jordans, these white sneakers,” she said. “I put them in a box that was his size of Nikes. So he didn’t expect anything. Then I put two little pregnancy tests in there. I had been shaking at home waiting for him to come home. So he nonchalantly walked in and he, ironically enough, had a bag of Nikes. I was like, ‘Did you go shopping today?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I got myself some new sneakers.’ I’m like, ‘No way. I got some too today.'”
“He came over and chucked off the lid of the box and started rummaging through it,” she added. “He looked at the shoes and was like, ‘How small are these sneakers?’ Then it hit him and his face … it was priceless.”
Johnson revealed that she is nearing her second trimester and is due in January 2023.
“The first trimester is a scary time and there’s so many things that can go wrong, potentially,” she said. “I just have taken this time to really relax and try to stay calm and keep my body healthy. Which has been hard, because I’m a really active person. I love to work out. I love to dance. But I’ve just made it a priority for myself to really make a shift and to prioritize the baby and what was happening and all of these new changes.”
“One of the best things for me was finding peace and not having to feel like I needed to be so busy and insanely active,” she continued. “I think I’m just giving my body the necessary rest. I think that’s the best thing I can do for myself. It’s also just taught me that I can be okay with downtime. I don’t need to overwork myself.”
While this obviously counts Johnson out for the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars on Disney Plus, Chmerkovskiy hopes to be featured as a pro but no casting decisions have been revealed yet.