“SURPRISE!!,” Kelly Rowland posted on Instagram Wednesday morning, captioning one of her two November covers for Women’s Health—the magazine’s first-ever Music Issue—in which Rowland also proudly displays a baby bump.
The now 39-year-old Rowland is already mother to son Titan, who turns six in November. As she tells the magazine, her pandemic pregnancy was at least semi-planned with husband Tim Weatherspoon.
“We had been talking about it loosely, and then COVID happened, and we were just like, ‘Let’s see what happens,’” she says, revealing that she conceived quickly. “In the midst of her gratitude, she confesses, she felt hesitant to make her joyful news public, with the pandemic, a racial reckoning, and a severe economic downturn roiling the country,” writes the magazine.
“But you still want to remind people that life is important,” says Rowland. “And being able to have a child…I’m knocking at 40’s door in February. Taking care of myself means a lot to me.”
Since it’s Women’s Health, Rowland shares insights into how she’s stayed famously fit over the past two-plus-decades of her career. Though some of it is no doubt due to genetics (since she doesn’t count calories), she has been in the habit of maintaining major sweat sessions with celebrity trainer Massy Arias. She also shares how she navigated a healthy pregnancy and easy delivery with Titan, explaining, “I swam, I did yoga, I did weights, I jogged and walked.”
Call it quarantine-fatigue, but this time around is a little different, Rowland admits to Women’s Health, which notes: “[N]ot long after her doctor confirmed she was expecting, an ‘overwhelming sense of exhaustion hit.’ She spent most of her first trimester resting in bed, realizing that prenatal fitness in 2020 might look different than it did six years ago.”
The toll is no doubt somewhat emotional, as she, like the rest of us, has also been processing the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others in this year of racial reckoning. As Rowland tells the magazine, “[nothing] could have prepared her for what it’s like to raise a young Black boy in these times.”
“I’d just put Titan to bed,” she tells WH. “I got into the shower, and I had this real hard, ugly, deep cry. Because I promised to protect my kid. That was the main thing I was thinking about: protecting this little innocence.”
Rowland’s devotion to her firstborn is well-documented; just last weekend, she posted a tribute to her son, writing:
MY HEARTBEAT!!
Everything I do, I do it for you!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
You make my world turn in ways
I never thought! You changed my life!
Had one of those moments with you, tonight that made my heart explode and it felt like we were in our own little bubble! #Crazy
#Best-EST friend!!
No doubt her new arrival will benefit from the same—and among the many thrilled by the announcement, at least one person was giddy that Rowland’s news was finally made public.
“So Happy you are announcing today!!!,” commented Tina Knowles Lawson on Rowland’s post. “It has been hard keeping this exciting news a secret Congrats Tim and Titan too❤️❤️❤️❤️ grandchildren yayyyy!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️”
In a post of her own celebrating the announcement, the proud bonus grandmother wrote: “How cute is that little belly !!! So excited about the new addition coming soon❤️❤️❤️. @kellyrowland @timspoon @titanjewell”
But in case Rowland’s devoted fans are wondering, her second pregnancy doesn’t mean she’s detouring from music.
“I was thinking, Oh my god, my fans are gonna be so disappointed.…They wanted an album first, but they got a baby!” she tells WH. “And I was like, ‘I have to figure this out so they get both.’”
WH’s first-ever Music Issue, starring Kelly Rowland, hits stands October 20