Ashley & Jared Say Their Friendship Is Getting Them Through Her Pregnancy

As all seasoned Bachelor fans know, Jared Haibon and Ashley Iaconetti were best friends long before they became husband and wife in 2019. Now, as they prepare to welcome their first child in February 2022, they’re realizing just how important that foundation is. “The importance of the friendship component comes out now,” Iaconetti tells Elite Daily while chatting about the couple’s new partnership with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. “We just understand each other.”

Iaconetti, who’s famously candid on and off-screen, has documented their journey to conceive on social media — and now, she’s using her platform to speak openly about her difficult first trimester. In a July 15 Instagram post announcing her pregnancy, Iaconetti likened the “relentless” nausea to “an extreme hangover for five weeks and counting,” and thanked her friends and followers for helping her feel less alone. Haibon, too, has been supporting her throughout the process.

“Now that she’s pregnant, supporting her is getting her whatever she needs. She feels bad when she makes me run errands, and I’m like, ‘This is far easier than what you’re going through. I don’t mind one bit,’” he tells Elite Daily. Throughout her first trimester, he says he’s been “constantly asking if she needs anything, playing with her hair, taking care of [their dog] Lois.”

The biggest challenge they’ve been facing as a couple, though, is guilt. “I just feel bad because I feel very gross. I don’t feel myself. I just have guilt that he says I shouldn’t be feeling at all, because I’m like, ‘I’m not a fun partner right now. You barely can do anything with me,’” Iaconetti says. “We don’t have any date nights, I kiss him good night and I kiss him hello and goodbye and it’s like, I don’t remember the last time it wasn’t a peck, because I don’t feel good about myself. And it’s just like, ‘I don’t know why you want to touch me.’”

For Haibon, it’s difficult watching his wife go through so much pain and discomfort. “I think both of us feel guilty a lot of the time. She feels guilty for literally not wanting to do anything besides sit on the couch, and then I’ll feel guilty when it’s like, ‘Alright, well, I’m just going to go hang out with my friends for a little while,’” he says. “I think that’s probably the biggest hurdle for both of us.”

But they both agree they’ve been able to lean into their years-long friendship for support. “We always said that Ashley and I were truly lucky that during our friendship, we really built, unintentionally, this super-strong foundation for a relationship,” Haibon says, adding that Iaconetti has made him a better communicator.

Haibon and Iaconetti first met on Bachelor in Paradise in 2015, and although she was instantly smitten, he didn’t reciprocate her feelings at first. They continued to develop a solid friendship off-screen, and both appeared on the subsequent season of Paradise — but he started dating Caila Quinn, and Iaconetti soon entered into a relationship with Kevin Wendt. In 2018, Haibon realized he had feelings for Iaconetti, made a move, and the rest was history.

Now, through their partnership with Green Mountain Coffee, they want to help more couples realize they’re meant to be. “Ashley and I, we had a couple ‘brew-overs,’ let’s say that,” Haibon jokes. On brewovers.com, anyone who’s been waiting for the perfect time to make a move or reunite with the one that got away can share their story for a chance to win a luxurious, Bachelor-style date, complete with iced coffee from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ new line of Brew Over Ice K-cup pods. “It tastes like you got it from a cafe,” Iaconetti says.

In September 2020, Iaconetti revealed on Instagram she had gone off the birth control pill. As of June 2021, they were still trying to conceive. “I would have been nervous about my fertility if I hadn’t gone to my OB/GYN a couple weeks ago,” Iaconetti wrote on Instagram in May. “She assured me that not being pregnant after six months of trying is totally normal and she’s not concerned at all.” But if there’s one lesson we can take away from her relationship with Haibon, it’s that sometimes, the best things take a little bit of time.