Bunnie XO details her and Jelly Roll's plans to welcome babies via surrogate
Bunnie XO and husband Jelly Roll are getting ready to add a new member or two to the DeFord family.
On the July 2 episode of her podcast "Dumb Blonde," she explained that though they started seeing a fertility specialist in 2019, it wasn't until this year that they felt both mentally and financially ready.
The couple, who married in 2016, plans to undergo in vitro fertilization with a surrogate, Bunnie, 44, revealed. This would be her first child with 39-year-old Jelly Roll, who has two children, 16-year-old Bailee Ann and 7-year-old Noah Buddy.
"This journey with IVF, we sat down a couple months ago. And I was just like, I feel like I've accomplished so much in my life. And the only thing that's left is to raise a baby and garden," Bunnie said. "I'm in my baby mama (and) gardening era."
Her husband was enthusiastic about the idea, she said.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
"J was like ... I would love to have a baby with you.' And that was not the response that I thought he would say," she said. "I was just like, 'Wow really? Have you always felt like that?'
"He was like, 'Yeah, I will always have a baby with you. If you want to have a baby, cool. If you don't, cool. Whatever you want to do. So now he's, like, really excited about it."
This early in the IVF process, the two haven't solidified their plans.
"We're on the fence of having twins. We think we want to have twin boys. I'm not sure; we could have one, we could have two. We don't know what we're going to do yet. We don't plan on implanting until February 2025."
Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO 'decided our IVF journey needed to be shared'
Before Grammy nominee Jelly Roll revealed on the June 4 episode of the Bussin' With The Boys podcast that he and Bunnie were undergoing IVF, the two had planned to keep their fertility journey private.
“We were going to keep it from the Internet, because how the Internet is, they love to ruin beautiful things," Bunnie said. But then she came around to their conception attempts being subject to public scrutiny and posted the clip from the podcast in which Jelly Roll talks about them undergoing IVF.
"God Willing- Baby DeFord 2026," Bunnie captioned the clip.
She also added a message in the video that read, "We had planned on doing this privately, but decided our IVF journey needed to be shared because we’ve always been so open. And (with) all odds stacked against us, it’s already been hard (and) we have only just begun. We have been meeting (with) IVF doctors (and) exploring all our options to add to our family.”
The comments showed "such a sweet response of overwhelming love," Bunnie said.
“Anybody that's dealt with infertility or having a hard time getting pregnant, that's all you want is people rooting you on. It's a very fragile situation,” she said.
Who is Jelly Roll?His journey from prison to Grammy nominee
'There is nothing wrong with having a surrogate'
Bunnie said she plans to keep further developments private but used her podcast's season finale episode as an opportunity to clarify their family planning.
"I'm just going to be honest with you guys. I am not going to carry the baby," she said. "I am not mentally well enough to let my hormones get out of whack."
Bunnie continued, "I have gotten to a place where I'm even-keeled. My anxiety is finally good. I don't have depression — of course I have down days and stuff like that, but nothing like what I went through in 2019."
That's why, though she was assured by a doctor that she was fertile, "we're going to go the surrogate route."
'It was really hard':Jennifer Aniston talks IVF journey
"There is nothing wrong with having a surrogate. I would have trouble carrying a baby. I have lost many babies, you know," Bunnie said. "One, we don't have the time to go through that. Two, my schedule does not allow for me to ... have another miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy."
Despite her frankness on the podcast, Bunnie said she and Jelly Roll hope to keep their pregnancy journey out of the limelight. This is because their family has experienced their share of online bullying, even with Jelly Roll's daughter, Bailee.
"From here on out with the IVF journey, I want to keep it private. Because we are going to be using one of my eggs and we're going to be using J's sperm, and we're going to be doing egg retrieval and a round of IVF," Bunnie said.
"The next time you hear me talk about IVF or the babies is going to be when the babies are born, when we're introducing them to do. If we choose to do that."