Emily Ratajkowski Is Pregnant With Her and Husband Sebastian Bear-McClard’s First Child

Congratulations are in order for Emily Ratajkowski and her husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, as the pair just announced that they’re expecting their first child together. Ratajkowski announced the exciting news via a special digital issue of Vogue, which was published on Monday. The model not only revealed that she’s expecting, but she also penned a lovely essay for the magazine in which she noted that she and her husband would be letting their child decide their gender.

Ratajkowski wrote that she and her husband, whom she wed in February 2018, have a straightforward response when their friends and family ask whether they’re hoping for a boy or girl. She wrote, “When my husband and I tell friends that I’m pregnant, their first question after ‘Congratulations’ is almost always, ‘Do you know what you want?’ We like to respond that we won’t know the gender until our child is 18 and that they’ll let us know then.”

The I Feel Pretty actor continued to touch upon the “generalizations” that are forced upon men and women, explaining that she doesn’t want her child to have to adhere to any confines of gender. “I don’t necessarily fault anyone for these generalizations—a lot of our life experiences are gendered, and it would be dishonest to try to deny the reality of many of them,” she wrote. “But I don’t like that we force gender-based preconceptions onto people, let alone babies. I want to be a parent who allows my child to show themself to me. And yet I realize that while I may hope my child can determine their own place in the world, they will, no matter what, be faced with the undeniable constraints and constructions of gender before they can speak or, hell, even be born.”

Ratajkowski ended her essay by writing that she used to employ “magical thinking” to try to force a certain outcome. But, when it comes to having a baby, she’s letting her little one take the lead. She concluded, “I’m too humbled to have any false notions of control. I’m completely and undeniably helpless when it comes to almost everything surrounding my pregnancy: how my body will change, who my child will be. But I’m surprisingly unbothered. Instead of feeling afraid, I feel a new sense of peace. I’m already learning from this person inside my body. I’m full of wonder.”