James Van Der Beek is opening up about learning he was going to be a dad for the sixth time.
On Monday, the actor, 42, revealed on Instagram that he and his wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek, are expecting another baby. In his caption, Van Der Beek said that he and Kimberly decided to share the news on Dancing with the Stars after she suffered a number of miscarriages.
During Monday night’s episode of DWTS, Van Der Beek told PEOPLE that revealing the news on the reality competition show was “thrilling.”
“We’ve had a few appointments where we found out we were not adding to our family and so Kimberly decided to do it on camera, to open it up and allow people to go through the experience — good result or not good result,” he said.
“It’s a part of life,” he continued. “It really helps to go through when you have the support of friends and family. People so often go through it in secret. You need to allow yourself space to grieve and go through it. For us, we walked out incredibly happy and excited.”
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When asked how he and Kimberly dealt with the heartbreaking miscarriage news, Van Der Beek said, “The only advice I have is that you can’t reason your way out of it and you can’t talk your way out of it.”
“You just have to let yourself go through it and go through the journey and be there for each other,” the former Dawson’s Creek actor added. “Know that you can’t judge the pain, you can’t judge the process. For us, thankfully, we also have three rainbow babies. It’s life. And also, don’t be afraid to talk about [it]. There’s a weird stigma that might still exist around it … things like that is when you need your family and friends.”
The couple, who tied the knot in 2010, recently welcomed daughter Gwendolyn in 2018. They are also parents to daughters Olivia, 9, Emilia, 3, Annabel Leah, 5, and son Joshua, 7.
When it came to sharing the miscarriage news with their five children, Van Der Beek said, “we just explained it.”
“I think they saw how we were feeling,” he shared. “Our approach is to be as honest as possible. Don’t try to sugar coat anything. They get the light and the dark. You tend to think, ‘They’re too young to understand.’ But they do.”
In his Instagram post on Monday, the actor said, “Thrilled beyond belief to announce that another little bundle of joy has picked us to be their family.”
“We chose to have our first ultrasound on camera with our #DWTS crew capturing the result — something I NEVER thought we’d ever do… but @vanderkimberly and I have been 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,” he continued.
The actor explained that he decided to share his family’s story “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 and support from friends and family when they need it most.”
Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.
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