Sean Duffy and Rachel Campos-Duffy Welcome Daughter Valentina StellaMaris: 'Life Is Wonderful'
Rachel Campos-Duffy is a mom for the ninth time!
The Fox Nation host and former Real World star, 47, announced the birth of her and husband Sean Duffy‘s daughter on Monday: a baby girl named Valentina StellaMaris Duffy.
“She is the sweetest, most perfect thing we have ever seen. It’s a wonderful life!” Campos-Duffy captioned a photo of her newborn fast asleep.
She opened up further about little Valentina in a Facebook post, sharing the same image as well as the new arrival with four of her big siblings and writing, “She was born last week, one month before her due date. She is doing great, though still in the NICU until she learns to eat on her own.”
“I’m home now, trying to recover from my first C-section (hats off to all the c-section moms out there — I had no idea!) and working hard with my breast pump to keep up with her growing appetite,” Campos-Duffy added. “When we visit with her at the hospital, the kids fight over who can hold her — I don’t blame them! She’s the sweetest, most perfect angel we have ever seen.”
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A post shared by Rachel Campos-Duffy (@rcamposduffy) on Oct 7, 2019 at 3:32pm PDT
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The Fox News contributor went on to share that Valentina has “a heart defect (2 holes in the heart and valves that need to be fixed)” that will require “surgery in 3-4 months.”
“As we suspected, Valentina was also born with an extra chromosome, which means she also has [Down] Syndrome,” Campos-Duffy continued. “That extra chromosome certainly made her EXTRA cute. Life is wonderful!”
“Thank you to everyone who prayed for Valentina all these months — your prayers were never felt more than in the crazy hours before her emergency birth,” Campos-Duffy wrote, praising her doctors and nurses as “a reminder that America is still home to the best and most caring medical professionals in the world! Now, in addition to being ‘Lady Freedom,’ our daughter, Paloma, wants to be a NICU nurse. What a noble profession!”
During a Tuesday-morning video call-in to Fox & Friends, the new mother of nine told host Ainsley Earhardt she was doing “really good” and shared that Valentina was born on Tuesday, Oct. 1.
A post shared by Rachel Campos-Duffy (@rcamposduffy) on May 6, 2019 at 2:45pm PDT
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Campos-Duffy announced on Instagram in May alongside a sonogram video that she and her politician husband of 20 years (whom she met during Road Rules: All Stars) were expecting baby No. 9.
“Buckingham Palace isn’t the only one with big baby news … we found out God isn’t done with our family yet,” Campos-Duffy wrote to accompany the clip.
“Baby #9 coming this fall!” she added, concluding her caption with, “Don’t tell us we’re crazy. We prefer brave and full of hope for America’s future!”
She and Duffy, 48, also share eight other children who range in age from 3 to 20: Patrick Miguel, Margarita, Maria-Victoria Margarita, Paloma Pilar, John-Paul, Lucia-Belén, Xavier Jack and Evita Pilar.
RELATED: Sean Duffy and Rachel Campos-Duffy, 47, Expecting Ninth Child: “Don’t Tell Us We’re Crazy”
Duffy announced in August that he would be leaving his position as U.S. Representative for Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district effective Sept. 23, to help care for the new baby, who would “need even more love, time, and attention due to complications, including a heart condition.”
Campos-Duffy later shared that “The baby does have holes in the heart but also could have some other developmental challenges, so we just wanted to create more space in our life.”
“You know how challenging it is to be a child inside a political family,” she told Abby Huntsman and Meghan McCain during a September appearance on The View alongside her husband. “We feel like there’s some things we regret and some things we missed out on, and after eight and a half years we’re tired of doing that.”
“It’s pretty easy for us in the sense that we’re lifers. We believe in life, and whatever gifts God gives us, we accept them. And this is gonna be a great gift,” Duffy added. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a little more stressful, but this little baby will have eight other siblings to wrap their loving arms around her, and we’re gonna do it as a family. We’ll figure out a different way to balance our lives.”
