The Bachelorette alum Rachel Lindsay has revealed she and Bryan Abasolo are already taking steps to have their first child, although the idea of being a working mom scares her.
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Rachel, 37, and Bryan, 42, got engaged on The Bachelorette's thirteenth season in 2017 and tied the knot in Cancun, Mexico in August 2019.
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Now that more than two-and-a-half years have passed since their wedding, Rachel and Bryan have come around to the idea of starting a family, but Rachel has made it known that it's a huge, scary decision she never took lightly.
"It's not fair because we have to make a decision that the other side doesn't -- I mean, if you want children, right? Not all women want children. But if you do want children and you want a family, and if you have a partner who wants it, you have to at some point make a choice," Rachel shared on a recent episode of the "Talking It Out with Bachelor Nation" podcast co-hosted by her husband Bryan and The Bachelorette alum Mike Johnson.
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"And there's a fear of, 'Will I lose what I started? Will people want to hire me after that?' And of course there's legal [laws] in place where that's not supposed to happen, but let's be honest, you know it does."
Rachel confirmed that as she's getting older as a woman, she thinks about whether or not to have a baby "all the time."
"[I've considered], 'Will people look at me a certain way? Will I have the flexibility that I had before?' And it's a really scary thought," Rachel said.
"And I'm dealing with that right now. I'm strategically, in my mind, trying to plan out, 'When could be the best time?'"
But Rachel acknowledged that in taking her time to do just that, she's also realized, "Hey, it may not be as easy as you thought."
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"You can't be like, 'Hey, July 2022, I want to make this happen,' because it could be a lot more difficult for you," Rachel noted.
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Rachel pointed out how her friends Astrid Loch and Kevin Wendt had to go through the IVF process to have children and it didn't happen "as naturally or as easily as they thought" it would.
"It's just so -- going back to the first thing I said -- unfair. Because you want it but then you feel selfish in certain ways, because it's like, 'Well, I also want this career, but I also want to start a family,'" Rachel explained.
"And I see a lot of women who are able to do both, so I don't want to make it seem like you can't have both. It's just taking that step and actually making it happen."
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Rachel revealed she has received advice from working moms, who have told her there is no right time and she should stop trying to plan the perfect time. The women apparently advised her to just "do it."
When Mike asked if she has taken her friends' advice, Rachel nodded her head yes.
"Already, already taking steps," Rachel revealed, although she wouldn't clarify whether she and Bryan are actually trying for a baby right now.
"That's all I'm going to say," she added.
Bryan agreed with his wife and said, "It's not easy. There's never a right time. But I think the word that should be used is 'adapting.'"
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Bryan said in life, things change and people must adapt. He also insisted that he's ready to help his wife and "pick up the slack" when or if he and Rachel welcome a baby together.
"At the same time, even if I'm not ready, I've just got to be ready," Bryan shared. "I'll be ready when it happens. That's the attitude you've got to have. I don't think anyone is ever ready for it; they just do it. And baby after baby, maybe it gets easier."
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Rachel said while she and Bryan initially wanted four children together, they need to cut that number down given Rachel is already 37 years old.
"I said, 'Let's have two and then see where you're at,'" Bryan told Mike.
Rachel joked about how she's going to do interviews with her baby strapped to her front or back once she becomes a mother and will continue to move, work and exercise.
"I know I can. It's just a matter of taking the steps to do it. It's scary when you get in that place," Rachel concluded.
Rachel found fame when she competed on Nick Viall's season of The Bachelor and got eliminated after Fantasy Suites.
When Rachel starred on The Bachelorette, she selected Bryan over her runner-up Peter Kraus at the Final Rose Ceremony, and Bryan in turn popped the question.
After the attorney-turned-media personality and Bryan got engaged, they lived in Rachel's hometown of Dallas, TX, for a while before moving to Miami, FL, in 2019 where Bryan continued working as a chiropractor.
Bryan gushed of his wife in June 2021 to Us Weekly, "Rachel just had like an X-factor [when I met her]."
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"She was a triple threat -- brains, beauty, personality, great sense of humor," he added. "She was a professional. She had a career. Everything on paper was top notch... She keeps me on my toes [and] she challenges me to be a better man."
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