It's a boy! Canadian Inuk model Willow Allen reveals baby's gender in heartwarming post: 'So much joy'
Allen says her and her partner initially planned on keeping their baby's gender a secret like their parents did.
Willow Allen is revealing her baby's gender.
The Inuk model and TikToker, 24, took to Instagram on Wednesday to share the announcement and reflect on her joy of the news.
In a carousel of photos, Allen showed off her growing baby bump in a pale blue sweater while holding a pair of white and blue baby wrap-around mittens.
"We're having a boy! I couldn't be more excited to share this news," she penned in the caption to her post.
The model says she initially intended to keep the gender a surprise, inspired by her parents' choice to do the same.
"From the beginning of my pregnancy we thought we wouldn't find out the gender until the baby arrived. I loved the idea of keeping it a surprise because that's what our parents had done for us," Allen shared.
However, due to the challenges she faced in the early stages of pregnancy, she and her partner made a different decision.
"It was so difficult at the beginning to think about pregnancy without thinking of how hard each day had been because of the sickness. We decided to find out the gender at 25 weeks and it brought us so much joy finding out we are having a little boy," she explained, adding that knowing the gender prompted her to envision "what parenthood will look like."
In the comments, fans celebrated Allen's parenting milestone and congratulated her on the news.
"Amazing, congratulations! You're doing so well, Willow. [I] promise it ends, and you'll feel on top of the dang world — it all feels worth it. As hard as it is at the time," a fan assured Allen.
"I'm with you. I had an uncontrollable urge to know who was growing in there! Congratulations on being a boy mom. There is nothing like this kind of love!" someone else commented.
"I hope you're feeling better every day!" another wrote. "Congratulations."
"I felt the same way about finding out the gender when I was so, so sick. It helped the day pass by," shared another.
In an interview with Global News earlier this month, Allen opened up about her pregnancy journey, highlighting the symptom that has been the most difficult for her to manage.
"I think it's really hard to explain to people just how severe the sickness really is and how debilitating it really is," she said.
At the beginning of her pregnancy, Allen revealed she lost 15 pounds.
"I've never been in such a weak physical state before and just having such little control over your life essentially because of how limited you are and not being able to do really anything for yourself when it's that severe — it was really scary," she added.
According to a recent study, while there are a number of factors that determine morning sickness, including hormonal changes and blood sugar levels, a protein called GDF15 could be the main culprit.
"I think we really do now pretty much fully understand or have a very good understanding of why women get sick in pregnancy and, in particular, why some women get very sick in pregnancy," University of Cambridge professor Sir Stephen O'Rahilly told Global News.
O'Rahilly added this new finding "gives us the next step to really being confident that if we manipulate this appropriately, we can help women with the more severe end certainly of the problem."
He explained there is a way to block GDF15 receptors in the brain that's "relatively easy to do."
"We need to make that antibody so it doesn't cross the placenta and therefore we have the safety element of it not getting into the fetus," he said.
Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
