Jen Lilley Is Pregnant! Actress Expecting a Baby with Husband Jason Wayne: 'So Happy'

The actress Jen Lilley and husband Jason Wayne are expecting a baby next year

Published on October 29, 2021 12:00 PM

Jen Lilley and her husband Jason Wayne are expanding their happy family!

The proud parents of three are excited to announce they are expecting another baby next year.

"I'm so, so happy," Lilley, 37, tells PEOPLE, joking that the future family of six is "going to have to get a bus now."

Lilley and Wayne are parents to half-brothers Kayden, 5, and Jeffrey, 3, whom they adopted from foster care in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and welcomed daughter Julie, now 2, in 2019.

"Julie was planned, but this was definitely a surprise," says Lilley, who was on her way to Canada to film her new TV movie Royally Wrapped for Christmas when she sensed a change in her body.

"I don't know what it is with me, but I honestly will know like day after conception, I'm very aware of my body," she says. "I felt very pregnant and I thought, 'This is very weird.' I was excited, but also it was so strange. I was in this long customs line in Canada waiting for my work permit, and I'm texting my husband and our nanny via group text, 'I think I'm pregnant right now?' "

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On that hunch, Lilley took a pregnancy test at her hotel in Canada. It was negative.

So she carried on with her quarantine ahead of the start of filming, but couldn't shake that intuitive feeling.

"I ordered another test on Amazon, I take the test," she recalls. "I'm in Ottawa and this is like a French-Canadian test, not one I've normally seen, the directions were in four different languages. I see one line in the control and one line in the other. On an American pregnancy test, that's a negative. So I go to throw it out. But I'm looking at the test and I'm looking at the box, I'm looking at the test and I realize this one is positive."

The A Little Daytime Drama star says the surprise factor started to wear off once the happy news was officially confirmed by her doctor.

"It took a long time to comprehend it," she says. "I waited until I was back [from filming] and had a doctor's appointment to verify it because I just kept thinking, 'I need a blood test.' "

Meanwhile, the rest of the family is just as excited about having a new little brother or sister.

"Kayden and Jeffrey very much understand," Lilley says. "It's also been super helpful to kind of start talking to Kayden a bit about adoption, which has been great. Because he says, 'So when I was in your belly,' and I'm like, 'Okay, let me talk to you about that.' So it's been a really wonderful introduction to explain adoption to him. That's been awesome and he's really excited."

Lilley is due in May 2022, which also happens to be Kayden's birthday month.

"He says, 'I want you to have the baby on my birthday! I want you to name the baby Kayden and then that baby will be my twin,' " she says. "And I'm like, 'That's not how twins work.' But he's really excited. Jeffrey's really excited. I don't think Julie understands."

In the meantime, Lilley is busy promoting and fundraising for her second annual Christmas is Not Cancelled toy drive with the goal of donating 20,000 toys to Toys for Tots, and enjoying her pregnancy thus far

"This has been a little bit more of a finicky baby than Julie," she says. "But overall I cannot complain. I've had the traditional tiredness and nausea, but luckily I've not had it as bad as most people. I'm so excited."

Lilley's Royally Wrapped for Christmas airs Nov. 27 on GAC Family and you can find more information about her Christmas Is Not Cancelled toy drive here.