Derek Hough and woman Hayley Erbert reflected welcoming her rainbow baby in a home birth after Erbert’s near-fatal health scare.
“We had candles everywhere, beautiful music playing,” Hough, 40, said people in an interview published on Wednesday, January 21, as she recalled the arrival of daughter Everley in December 2025. “Being in the room during Hayley’s birth, holding her … She just became empowered. I was in awe the whole time. I was like, ‘Damn.’ All of you women are bad.”
Erbert, 31 years old, called the moment “so special”. He also addressed the current state of his health more than two years after undergoing surgery to replace a large portion of his skull that was removed during a craniectomy.
“Honestly, I’m always on the lookout. If I get a headache, I instantly have some kind of PTSD where I’m like, ‘Is this going to go away?’ Because it all started with just a headache,” she noted. “But there’s really nothing to be aware of or be aware of. It’s just living life.”
Derek Hough and Hayley Erbert captivated audiences with their chemistry long before they tied the knot in 2023. Hough first linked up with Erbert after she was cast as a dancer on his and her sister Julianne Hough’s live tour in 2014. In July 2015, they were a couple. Thank you! You have successfully subscribed. Subscribe (…)
Hough and Erbert began dating in 2015 and announced their engagement seven years later. They married in 2023, the same year Erbert was hospitalized and treated for a cranial hematoma.
“One of the first things Hayley said when she came in after the surgery, with half her skull missing, her face swollen, wasn’t, ‘Will I be able to dance again?’ It was, ‘Can I have children in the future?'” Hough recalled to People. “The doctor said, ‘Yes, of course.’ And here we are.”
The couple announced Erbert’s pregnancy in July 2025. While awaiting the arrival of their daughter, the couple revealed that Erbert had previously suffered a miscarriage.
“There are some things in life that change you forever,” they wrote in a joint post via Instagram in October 2025. “For us, this is one of those things. A chapter of love, loss, heartbreak and everything in between. Since we’re in October, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, we’re sharing this part of our story to honor our baby, who never ended four pregnancies.” The heartbreak that many families know and unfortunately we have had to experience, you know there is a rainbow behind ♥️🌈.
While talking to Gent, Erbert he expressed gratitude for having a “decently easy pregnancy” with Everley.
Many stars grew their families in 2026. Former Bachelor contestant Sydney Warner announced in January that she gave birth to her second baby with husband, NFL star Fred Warner. “Our girl is safe, healthy and so deeply loved,” Sydney said via Instagram on January 7. “Grateful for God’s protection, strength and countless prayers (…)
“I didn’t really have any morning sickness. I had some food aversions, but I felt very at peace,” she added Wednesday. “Any time I felt movement, I was like, ‘Oh my God, baby, that’s wild.'”
He continued: “I felt like I had a little alien inside of me. Everley does these karate kicks when we change her. I was like, ‘This is what was going on inside of me.’ It’s cool to be able to see that now in real life.”
Erbert also explained why the couple chose not to announce their pregnancy until she was almost 20 weeks along with Everley.
“I didn’t have many symptoms at first, I felt really good, so I was really scared that something was going to happen. It scared us,” she said. “When we were on our adventures, we tried to live life to the fullest because we knew it would be the last year for both of us. But when we got home, we did a scan just to make sure everything was okay.”
Looking ahead, Erbert and Hough aren’t ruling out the idea of expanding their family again.
“There’s a saying that your first makes you want a million kids, and your second makes you feel like you’ve got a million. So I’m like, ‘OK, that’s good to know,'” she told the network, while Hough added, “I know, because after that we’re like, ‘OK, baby, let’s go!’ Let’s go.”