‘Dancing With the Stars’: James Van Der Beek Reveals Wife Expecting Sixth Child

James Van Der Beek and wife Kimberly are expecting another baby, the Dawson’s Creek alum announced on Monday’s episode of Dancing With the Stars. The addition will make for the couple’s sixth child together, taking their family to a brood of eight. The couple, who tied the knot in 2010, welcomed daughter Gwendolyn in 2018. They are also parents to daughters Olivia, 9, Emilia, 3, Annabel Leah, 5, and son Joshua, 7.

After making the big announcement during his introductory video package to his and pro partner Emma Slater‘s quick step Monday night, Van Der Beek took to Instagram to gush over the exciting news.

“Thrilled beyond belief to announce that another little bundle of joy has picked us to be their family,” he wrote alongside a sweet photo of his growing family. He also shared in the caption why he and Kimberly decided to share the news on DWTS, explaining that they wanted to end the stigma on talking about miscarriages after Kimberly suffered three of them.

“We chose to have our first ultrasound with our #DWTS crew capturing the result – something I NEVER thought we’d ever do… but [Kimberly] and I have bee through three of those first appointments to discover either no heartbeat, or no baby, and she wanted to share this moment,” Van Der Beek wrote.

“Miscarriage (a word that needs a replacement – nobody failed to ‘carry’, these things sometimes just happen) is something that people rarely talk about, and often go through in secret. But there needs to be zero shame around it, or around giving yourself the time and space to grieve. We decided to put ourselves out there – not knowing what we’d find – in an effort to chip away at any senseless stigma around this experience and to encourage people who might be going through it to open themselves up to love & support from friends and family when they need it most. Happily, for us – this time- we walked out with tears of joy.”

In the intro package to his and Slater’s dance, Van Der Beek explained that he and Kimberly “have reason to believe we are pregnant again,” before footage was shown of their ultrasound appointment. “We are so excited there’s a new little Van Der Beek in there,” he said.

“Hearing the heartbeat was — it’s something you never take for granted,” he continued, later sharing the news with Slater during rehearsals. “So we have recently found out that we are pregnant,” he said, to Slater’s delight.

“We’ve had 5 kids, We’ve had 3 miscarriages in between those,” he continued.

He also opened up about what it was like being able to share the personal news with his dance partner. “To share his kind of joyous news with Emma is a real treat,” he said. “Miscarriage is something people really don’t talk about and we want to recognize that it happens to people. We wanted to destigmatize that as much as we really could.”

Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: Daniel Zuchnik / Contributor / Getty