The Bachelorette alum Blake Horstmann and Love Is Blind alum Giannina Gibelli have welcomed their first child together.
ADVERTISEMENT
|
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Alongside beautiful black-and-white pictures of Blake and Giannina meeting their baby for the first time, the couple wrote, "His first breath took ours away. Meet Heath Orion Horstmann born on Good Friday 3/29/24."
The pair added, "Everyone is home happy and healthy -- his pregnancy and birth were a dream come true. Our lives are brighter, fuller, and forever better. Thank you for all of the love and well wishes, Heath has so many people who love him. We're parents!"
Blake also commented on the post, "Best day of my life."
Congratulatory comments poured in from Bachelor Nation.
"He's beautiful and so are you two," Jason Tartick wrote. "Can't wait to meet the little stud! Congratulations! Hope you're recovering fast and well G baby!"
Abigail Heringer commented, "CRYING. So happy for you both!!"
And Serena Pitt gushed, "Omggg congrats!! So amazing!"
Giannina called Heath his "father's twin" during an interview with Us Weekly.
"There are so many similarities it's adorable to see them light up in each other. As far as personality goes, he's an Aries like his mama so we'll see, he just might be the perfect mix of both of us," Giannina said.
The new mom revealed she "had to pivot" from her original birth plan, which was a fully unmedicated birth.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW
"My body was reacting and I was still able to have the delivery I always wanted while taking control of the situation and advocating for myself every step of the way," Giannina explained.
"I caught my baby, Blake cut the chord, it was the coolest, most empowering and most badass thing I've done in my entire life."
Giannina gushed about how she actually "enjoyed the act of giving birth," adding, "You're conditioned to think it's this scary thing, but even during the hardest parts I had the biggest smile on my face, I literally couldn't hide how happy it made me."
The Love Is Blind alum also said Blake was "very impressive" during her delivery and was able to calm her down but also make her feel "powerful" at the same time.
"I couldn't have asked for a better partner, it was beautiful to witness," she gushed.
Giannina and Blake previously teased their son's arrival during a joint appearance on Love Is Blind's Season 6 reunion, which was released on Netflix last month.
"I'm hoping it looks just like [Blake]," the then-pregnant reality TV star reportedly shared.
"We're waiting until he pops out [to name him]. I don't know if he's going to be a little, like, fair-skin-and-blue-eyed like him or a little spicier like me. I just want to see what he looks like."
ADVERTISEMENT
Once the lovebirds met Heath, they agreed that his name was a perfect fit.
"We wanted his name to feel unique and meaningful. It's a name that's grounded in nature and his middle name is connected to strength, bravery and adventure," Giannina told the magazine.
"As soon as we said the name out loud we looked at each other and just knew that was it."
Giannina said she and Blake have loved "doing everything together" when it comes to taking care of their newborn at home.
"The only time we see us 'dividing' our time is when he's off to work," Giannina noted, "but we have our village that's with us 24/7 so it's been a beautiful thing to be able to focus just on our baby and our time as a family together."
Blake and Giannina announced they were expecting their first child together in November.
"First comes love, then comes baby H," the couple wrote in a joint statement posted Tuesday, November 14 on Instagram.
"We're so grateful that life has led us here and over the moon to be parents to our sweet baby come spring 2024!
Blake asked Giannina to move in with him in Denver, CO, in November 2022.
Blake and Giannina went Instagram official in early April 2022 while they were on a trip to Spain, several months after reports began to swirl about the couple dating.
Blake and Giannina -- who called Blake her "worst kept secret" in June -- had to keep their relationship, which began in late 2021, under wraps for a while because they had met on a Paramount+ reality show called All Star Shore, which filmed in December 2021 and didn't premiere until June 2022.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)
ADVERTISEMENT
She added at the time, however, that she was "really happy to be sharing these moments" with Blake "in private."
Reports Blake -- who finished The Bachelorette's eleventh season starring Becca Kufrin as the runner-up and failed to find lasting love on Bachelor in Paradise -- and Giannina, who appeared on Love is Blind in 2020, were dating first surfaced in January 2022.
"They're taking things slow. But [they] seem really happy together," a source told People at the time.
Giannina got engaged to fellow Love Is Blind contestant Damian Powers on the show in 2020, but during the season finale, Damian reportedly admitted at the altar he couldn't go through with marrying her so soon.
The pair chose to stay together and continue dating, but then Giannina announced in August 2021 she and Damian had split.
"I am officially single. Me and Damian haven't been dating for a couple of months now," Giannina told Entertainment Tonight at the time.
As for Blake, his breakup with Becca on The Bachelorette finale in August 2018 was excruciating to watch considering Blake had said he was madly in love with the show's leading lady.
Blake was admittedly "blindsided" by Becca's decision to dump him because he appeared to be her frontrunner all season long.
"I truly thought that if it came down to me proposing, that she wouldn't say no," Blake told ET in 2018. "I thought what we had was real."
Blake added it was "incredibly hard" to get over his heartbreak at first.
After appearing on Becca's The Bachelorette season, Blake had flings with The Bachelor alums Caelynn Miller-Keyes and Kristina Schulman.
ADVERTISEMENT
He was romantically interested in Hannah Godwin on the ABC spinoff, but she chose to pursue a relationship with Dylan Barbour instead.
Blake said on Instagram in Summer 2021 that he has no interest in appearing on the franchise again for the sake of his mental health because he believes the franchise "breeds toxicity and emotional abuse."
Blake led Bachelor Nation to believe he and Becca were getting back together in 2021, but Becca denied that was the case and chose to look for love on Season 7 of Bachelor in Paradise that summer.
Becca is now happily married to her Paradise co-star and The Bachelorette 17 alum Thomas Jacobs, and they have one child together.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS)
Interested in more The Bachelor news? Follow our Bachelor Nation News Page on Facebook or join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski