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Meghan King Edmonds and husband Jim Edmonds are expanding their team again!
The 33-year-old Real Housewives of Orange County star announced on her blog Monday that she’s pregnant with her second child, a boy, due in June 2018.
She and Jim, whom she married in 2014, welcomed 1-year-old daughter Aspen via in vitro fertilization in November 2016. Jim has four other children via previous relationships.
Meghan shared the good news with her RHOC castmates at the RHOC reunion, filmed in October and airing its final part Monday.
“It was so hard for us to keep it a secret from everyone especially since we shared our entire IVF journey with Aspen on RHOC from the very beginning,” she wrote on her blog. “Tonight on the RHOC reunion you’ll see that I’m only one month pregnant, but that was filmed five weeks ago: we are now 10 weeks pregnant (and I’m feeling every bit of it)!”
The decision to have another child was something Meghan and Jim knew they wanted to do early on, she explained.
“When Aspen was only a few months old Jimmy and I knew we wanted to add another baby to the mix,” Meghan wrote. “Yes, Aspen has half-siblings but we wanted her to be able to share in the joy of waking up to a sibling every day of her life. Plus her half-siblings are completely enamored by Aspen and they LOVED the idea of expanding our family even more.”
Like Aspen, Meghan conceived her son via IVF — a “difficult decision” because Jim didn’t want Meghan “to have to again endure the emotional rollercoaster that comes with IVF,” which would be much more involved now that she and Jim were trying for a boy (they already have two frozen female embryos).
Still, Megan said she felt more comfortable starting from scratch and going through the process again since she “knew what to expect.”
Knowing what to expect made the experience easier, it turns out — though having dog Girly Girl and baby Aspen also helped.
“Opposite of my first experience with IVF, this time I was anxious for the emotional toll while knowing I could handle the physical repercussions,” Megan said. “Additionally I had reliable companionship this time around with Jimmy by my side, my trusty furry companion Girly Girl and of course baby Aspen. It may seem silly to mention Aspen and Girly Girl but this support system was everything to me during round 2 of IVF. (Side note: If you remember from RHOC, during my first round of IVF I entered the worst depression of my life, probably due to the erratic hormones combined with loneliness. I was able to wean off my depression meds halfway through my pregnancy with Aspen which directly corresponded with when I got Girly Girl, and I haven’t been on a lick of antidepressants since then. Dogs are truly woman’s best friend and medicine for the soul… and apparently clinical depression!).”
“I felt like I handled this IVF much more in stride,” she continued. “I’m not sure if it’s because I knew what to expect or if maybe my body was used to the hormones, but it was easier. I was also armed with the emotional mindset to be so much healthier this time around whereas last time I was surrounded by the stress of filming RHOC (which is VERY stressful and emotionally taxing). I ate super healthy, cut out most alcohol (next to impossible to do while filming), attended regular acupuncture sessions, and took daily walks. I also prayed, meditated, and read a lot. I didn’t even watch emotional or negative TV shows. I just felt at ease.”
Jim was also more present this time, as they began the IVF process over the summer after baseball season ended. “It was so dumb of us to do round 1 of IVF in April at the height of spring training,” Meghan wrote. “We were so anti-overlapping-IVF-and-baseball that we even had to shift our original schedule due to The St Louis Cardinals’ schedule!”
Ultimately, Meghan’s healthy lifestyle helped produce 10 mature eggs, all of which were fertilized and made it to the zygote stage.
Though the couple had used the Erickson Method (a.k.a. “spin the sperm.”) — a process doctors believe helps manipulate the fertilization process by separating the x and y sperm to produce as many male embryos as possible — Meghan and Jim “again did PGS (preimplantation genetic screening), which not only uncovers which embryos have genetic abnormalities but also identifies the specific chromosomes that are additional or missing.”
“The reason for this test is so that we do not transfer genetically imperfect embryos because their chances of making it to term are low: most miscarriages are a result of chromosomal abnormalities. We can essentially eliminate the risk of miscarriage due to chromosomal abnormalities by transferring completely healthy embryos determined by PGS,” she wrote. “The way I see it is that if I get pregnant with a PGS embryo my chances of miscarriage are virtually eliminated except for an act of God. PGS also uncovers the sex of each embryo.”
Of the 10 embryos, only four were chromosomally normal: three boys and one girl. “We were a bit shocked that 60 percent of our embryos were abnormal but so happy to have four VERY strong and perfectly healthy embryos,” she said. “Fast forward to today and I am pregnant!”
“I’m not feeling the greatest but we know that it will all be worth it in the end,” Meghan concluded her post. “Aspen will make a fabulous big sister at only a year-and-a-half old in June 2018!”
The Real Housewives of Orange County reunion concludes Monday (9 p.m. ET) on Bravo.
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE.
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