Reagan Charleston is a mom!
The Southern Charm New Orleans star, 31, and her husband Reece Thomas welcomed their first child on Wednesday, PEOPLE can exclusively report — a baby girl whom they’ve named Reece Ellis Thomas, “after her daddy.”
Delivered by Dr. Jamie Hymel at 12:19 p.m., baby Reece weighed in at 7 lbs., 5 oz., and measured 19 inches long.
“We are simply overjoyed that Baby Reece came into this world today healthy and happy!” Charleston and Thomas, 32, told PEOPLE. “We have never known love like this!”
It was a crazy two days for Charleston and Thomas. Less than 24 hours before she was due to give birth, Thomas was hospitalized with appendicitis and told he’d have to remain there for at least a week. “[I] DID NOT think this guy would be in a hospital bed,” Charleston wrote on Instagram. “Perfect timing … God has a sense of humor.”
Luckily, his heath crisis didn’t prevent him from making it into the delivery room, Charleston told PEOPLE. “We were both so thrilled that Daddy Reece’s white blood cell count was down and his doctors let him join us for the delivery and stay the day with us.”
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Southern Charm Star Reagan Charleston’s Husband Hospitalized the Day Before She Is to Give Birth
PEOPLE broke the news exclusively in May that Charleston and Thomas, an operations manager at the Elite Thoroughbreds Farm, were married and expecting a baby girl, due in June. “We’re thrilled!” Charleston told PEOPLE at the time. “Everything has been in hyperdrive, but it’s been incredible.”
Her union with Thomas marks Charleston’s second marriage; she and Jeff Charleston decided to go their separate ways after six years of marriage last June.
“He’s my second chance,” Charleston said of Thomas, whom she had previously dated over a decade ago but parted ways with after college until they reconnected following her divorce. “I’d gone through this really difficult transition in my life after my divorce and I was looking at being 30 years old where my friends were getting married for the first time and having babies and starting families and I was looking at completely starting over.”
“That was terrifying. But then Reece came back into my life and everything fell into place,” she explained. “I can’t see my life any other way right now. It feels like everything is perfect.”
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Southern Charm New Orleans cameras will follow Charleston and Thomas’ romance in its second season, including their romantic nuptials (part of the reason the reality star said she kept her big news off of social media).
The couple didn’t wait long before they decided they wanted to get married and start trying for a child.
“I spent so much time convincing myself that I didn’t want kids, that I didn’t want a family, that it just wasn’t right because I had this career and every excuse I could make for myself,” Charleston recalled in May.
“And then as soon as we started seeing each other, it was like six months later we started talking about when we wanted to get married and start having a family.”
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Meanwhile, it was a busy pregnancy for Charleston. Right before she found out she was expecting, she opened her self-named jewelry retail store in New Orleans. And just six months in, Charleston took the bar exam — and passed.
“It was miserable, actually,” she joked to PEOPLE about the stress of managing it all.
This summer, Charleston will start another business: her own law practice with her father-in-law in New Orleans, where she’ll be doing primarily real-estate law.
“We’ve been getting prepped on top of all of this,” she said in May. “I’ll be able to bring my baby to work. The idea of balancing family and career was something that was so scary to me, but the whole family is rallying around right now. Reece has been so supportive in helping me figure out how to navigate all of that.”
Surprise! Southern Charm New Orleans‘ Reagan Charleston Is Married with a Baby Girl on the Way
The couple experienced a bit of a scare in April, when Charleston was about 30 weeks along in her pregnancy and it looked like she might have to deliver their daughter very early.
Luckily, that wasn’t the case. As Thomas explained alongside a video of his wife hooked up to medical machinery, “8 weeks ago, we were in the hospital scared we would have a premature baby. Reagan was already dilated and we had to prepare ourselves for a change of plans. Both girls toughed it out and momma made it like she said she would.”
“Now we have a fully developed little girl who could make her big entrance any day now … and bae had time to pack her own hospital bag lol fake eyelashes are not priority,” he concluded. “I was panic packing. What can I say ?”
Southern Charm New Orleans airs Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on Bravo.
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