Country singer Lauren Alaina is expecting her first baby

A self-described “Georgia peach,” Lauren Alaina is used to singing country songs … but she’ll likely be brushing up on her lullabies. The former American Idol contestant is having a baby!

Alaina, who married husband Cam Arnold in February 2024, planned to start trying to get pregnant later this year, but she’s a little ahead of schedule.

“People are like, ‘What’s your plan with the birth? And what’s your plan here?’ And I’m like, listen, ‘God’s plan. It wasn’t my plan,’” she told People in a recent interview.

“(I didn’t know) I can love something that I haven’t even really held yet. I feel the baby inside me, and it’s kicking me and doing all of the things. It’s like I was the Grinch or something, and my heart grew,” said the mom-to-be. The experience has also drawn her closer to Arnold, who she said is “a big nurturer in general.”

This past year has been tough for Alaina, who lost her father in July 2024.

The “Getting Over Him” singer said that the baby is “an unexpected blessing.” She added, “We obviously still talk about and are dealing with the grief of my dad, but this baby has healed a lot of that for us … like it’s a little piece of my dad that will live on.”

Alaina teased her pregnancy at the end of her music video for “Those Kind of Women” by showing a baby bump … but at the time she shot the video, her own bump wasn’t big enough, so she wore a prosthetic baby bump, she said.

“When we cut this song, when we recorded this song, I was not pregnant nor thinking about becoming pregnant,” she told People. “It’s funny how things fell into place. It literally changed the song for me. I already loved it, because it’s about the women who raised me. But, now I am going to be a woman raising a child.”