The Valley‘s Kristen Doute is preparing to welcome her first baby girl, Us Weekly can exclusively confirm.
Doute, 41, exclusively opened up to Us about learning the news with Broderick, 33, and their friends, including fellow Vanderpump Rules alum Brittany Cartwright. “Luke and I didn’t want to have a big reveal party, but we did want the gender to be revealed to us!” Doute told Us. “Brittany is my best friend and we share an OB, so it made perfect sense to have my doctor call her with the news.”
Cartwright, 35, and The Valley’s Zack Wickham “kept the secret for almost a week” before telling Doute and Broderick. “They had a large bag filled with pink balloons, completely hidden from us, and when we pulled the tie, the balloons came down and we saw we were having a girl,” Doute recalled, adding that there were “pink smoke cannons” to make the celebration even more special.
“Nia and Danny Booko [from The Valley] were there and also Tom Schwartz,” the mom-to-be continued. “We also had a ton of friends and family on a private Zoom link for the reveal.”
Kristen Doute’s romance with Luke Broderick started as a summertime hookup, but quickly became something more. The Vanderpump Rules alum met Broderick in June 2022 while serving as a bridesmaid and groomsman in their mutual friend’s nuptials. “Right after we met at the wedding, or, like, hung out at the wedding, we had sex,” Doute […]
Doute and her fiancé “couldn’t be happier” to have a daughter on the way — but they were both convinced they’d be having a boy. “I guessed wrong 100 percent of the time when it came to my friends’ pregnancies and not shockingly, I wasn’t right for mine either,” she teased.
Broderick, however, initially had a feeling they’d be welcoming a baby girl but “changed his mind the day of the reveal.” Doute gushed, “Luke was made to be a girl dad.”
The couple have had their little one’s name picked out “for a while,” but when it comes to her nursery, some details aren’t set in stone. “I’m still playing with the nursery theme,” Doute told Us. “But regardless of gender, it was always going to be neutral with pops of our chosen accent colors; cozy and a little bit boho.”
News broke in November that the couple are expecting their first baby. Doute and Broderick conceived via IUI (intrauterine insemination).
“I was relieved, overwhelmed, happy, excited and nervous. The second I told Luke, he wasn’t surprised, but was SO happy that IUI worked the first time [because] we were prepared that it may not,” the reality star told People last month. “He was joyful and beyond excited, to say the least! Our due date is in June and we are really looking forward to expanding our little family and becoming parents!”
Us exclusively confirmed in September that Broderick proposed to Doute in Hawaii after two years of dating. “I knew from the moment we met that Luke was my person,” Doute gushed following their engagement. “I am so excited to continue this journey together, now as fiancés.”
While mapping out their future together, the twosome wanted to hit specific relationship milestones in a certain order. “After we got engaged, Luke, you basically straight up were like, ‘We’re not going to plan a wedding until after babies,’” Doute recalled during an episode of their “Balancing Act” podcast in September. “I feel like we are on the baby train.”
Broderick agreed at the time that walking down the aisle wasn’t the pair’s first priority. “With our timeline, we should have a baby first and then start planning after that,” he said. “I know that ladies like to be feeling really good in their wedding dress. After you have a baby, we will start planning for a year after that. … There’s all these different complications [with pregnancy] that it would be best to do after the fact.”
Doute previously expressed concerns about how her age could potentially impact her path to motherhood. “Obviously, I think a lot of people know that a geriatric pregnancy is actually over 35 and I am now 40,” she said on the “Sex, Love and What Else Matters” podcast in October 2023. “[My doctor] recommended that as someone who has not frozen their eggs or done anything for us to give it a real fair shot during our ovulation time.”
Along with consulting her doctor, Doute found guidance from an unexpected source. “My psychic [told me last year] that I had a boy waiting on the other side for me but that I was not going to get pregnant when I was 40. It was going to be somewhere between 41 and 42,” she continued. “That’s when we truthfully started talking about our plans to try, I decided not to put pressure on myself because I believe my psychic. I am not going to worry about having a baby in 2023.”
In another episode of the same podcast one month later, Doute revealed that she experienced a “nonviable pregnancy” that led to a miscarriage. “I know that once Luke and I are past this we can try again,” she said in November 2023 while recounting the “terrifying” loss. “We were very lucky and very fortunate we got pregnant so quickly.”
