Ben Higgins shared an update on how his wife, Jess Clarke, is doing “midway through” her pregnancy with their first baby.
“Jess is fantastic … she has four months left,” Higgins, 35, gushed during the Thursday, October 3, episode of his “The Ben & Ashley I Almost Famous” podcast. “We just had our 20-week ultrasound, that’s the anatomy scan to check on everything. As of today, the baby is the size of a large banana. It’s pretty big.”
The former Bachelor further noted that Clarke, 29, often gets “really emotional” seeing their unborn baby on the ultrasound scan, but he hasn’t experienced the same reaction.
“Mostly because at one point, I was like, ‘She’s so cute,’ and [Jess] was like, ‘That’s her stomach.’ Well, then I’m out of this,” Higgins joked. “I have no clue what I’m looking at. This is just a bunch of different things happening at once.”
Higgins’ podcast cohost, fellow Bachelor Nation alum Ashley Iaconetti, then wondered whether he was “nesting” already.
“I am full speed ahead right now … I painted the nursery, put up the wainscoting, I’m redoing our bathroom,” Higgins said. “[It’s] early. I don’t want to be rushed at the end. I get emotional at times doing that because I’m like, ‘My baby girl’s gonna sleep in this one day.’ For the most part, I haven’t gotten very emotional yet.”
Higgins continued, “It’s awesome. It’s such a fun season of life for us — and Jess said her belly’s popped. Like, you can definitely see that she’s pregnant now.”
Higgins married Clarke in November 2021 after three years of dating. The pair confirmed Clarke’s pregnancy in August.
“The next chapter of our love story! Baby girl coming in February,” they captioned a joint Instagram post at the time.
Weeks later, Higgins confessed to Us Weekly that he was “terrified” of becoming a girl dad.
“With a girl, there’s 1,000 worst-case scenarios in my mind and I know she’s gonna break my heart,” Higgins exclusively told Us on August 19. “She’s gonna break [my heart] because it’s so full. … I can’t imagine walking in the door and seeing my little girl run up to me and be like, ‘Dad, you’re home.’ That just crushes me, and it excites me, and it makes me feel everything.”
He added, “I know I’m going to feel everything and that’s what’s so worrisome for me is what it’s going to do to me.”
That being said, Higgins jokingly told Us that he feared becoming “a pile of tears and mush forever” once his daughter was born.