Country star Thomas Rhett, 34, and his wife Lauren Akins, 34, have four daughters, and Lauren recently opened up with the challenges that came along with starting their family. Lauren found out she was pregnant just a few months after she and Thomas started the lengthy adoption process for their first daughter, meaning she ended up welcoming her first two children within three months of each other. In a video called "Lauren Akins: This Wasn't the Plan," Lauren said "it kinda felt like we went from zero to two pretty quick as parents."
Lauren met her eldest daughter, Willa Gray, 8, while on a mission trip in Uganda. She and her husband decided to adopt Willa, but the process took 13 months, and during that process, she found out she was pregnant with Ada James, 6.
She was alone in Africa navigating both the adoption process and her pregnancy, and she was largely dealing with it on her own as her husband was on tour in the US at the time. "I started to resent him a little bit," she admitted.
Eventually, because Lauren was "so sick" during her pregnancy, she returned to the US, and her parents went to Africa to bring Willa home to the US. Three months after Willa came home to be with Thomas and Lauren in the US, Lauren gave birth to Ada.
As a new mom to two young girls, Lauren admitted that she really began to resent her husband at this point.
More from LittleThings: Christina Hall And Her Husband File For Divorce After Less Than 3 Years Of Marriage
She started touring with Thomas, but their experiences felt very different, she described. "His life went on, and I feel like mine stopped," she admitted, adding that it felt like something that they were no longer doing together. They struggled with "miscommunication" and the "resentment" that Lauren felt toward Thomas, as welcoming their daughters didn't seem to change his life in the same way that it changed hers.
Lauren recalled reaching "a breaking point." At some point, she "didn't like him," and during an argument, she told him that she hated him and the way he prioritized his career.
Additionally, she felt like his career put "pressure" on their family. Through counseling, they were able to work through their issues.
While in counseling, the couple "shared everything" and "really just did a restart." "Some of it was really hard to hear from each other," she admitted.
When they welcomed their third child, Lennon Love, they were doing better, but were dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. After they welcomed Lillie Carolina in November 2021, Lauren struggled with postpartum depression.
On a 2023 episode of Lauren's podcast, Live in Love With Lauren Akins, Lauren and Thomas spoke about coping with postpartum depression.
"After Ada James, our marriage had a falling apart. After Lennon, the world had a falling apart," Lauren said at the time. "After Lillie, I had a falling apart."
Before Lauren was diagnosed with postpartum depression, she had a feeling that what she was experiencing wasn't "normal."
"I have experienced birthing children before and I've not felt this," she recalled thinking at the time. Thomas also admitted that he felt "hopeless" before Lauren was diagnosed.
"There's not many people you can talk to about that because you don't want it to sound like you're gossiping behind your wife's back," Thomas said on the podcast. "It's not like you want to call a buddy and be like, 'Hey, my wife is acting super strange.'"
As she was struggling with postpartum depression, Thomas spent a lot of time taking care of their children, Lauren revealed in the recent video.
In 2021, Thomas spoke to People about the joys of parenting and said he loves "getting to spend one-on-one time with each of" his kids.
"I think the longer I've gone as a dad, it's like each child really does need that one-on-one time — in the same way that Lauren and I just need time with each other," he said at the time.
