Lauren Akins is opening up about the struggles she faced throughout her unique journey to welcoming her first two children with her husband Thomas Rhett.
In the new White Chair Film released by I Am Second, the wife of the country singer, 34, spoke about her experience of welcoming two children just three months apart. While Akins was in the process of welcoming her oldest daughter Willa Gray, 8, via adoption, she discovered that she was pregnant with her second daughter Ada James, 6.
Willa was adopted by Thomas Rhett and Akins in May 2017, and as the mom of four detailed, "Three months, to the day, after she came home, I went to the hospital to deliver Ada." As the family transitioned from zero to two kids in such a short period of time, Akins recalled the difference in reactions between her and her husband.
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"I began touring with my husband," she explained, adding that, "His life went on, and mine stopped. I felt like we weren’t doing it together anymore."
Akins admitted, "I just hit a breaking point, where I didn't like him and I resented him."
To resolve their issues, the long-time couple participated in a "mini intensive counseling session" for over two days, where the two "shared -
everything."
"We shared everything, and some of it was really hard to hear from each other, so we really just did a restart," Akins said. Three years after restarting their relationship, the couple welcomed their third daughter Lennon Lovein February 2020, and shortly after came Lillie Carolina in November 2021.
In 2023, the couple co-hosted an episode of Akins' podcastLive in Love, where they went into detail about the postpartum depression Akin experienced after welcoming Lillie.
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"After Lennon, the world had a falling apart," she said of the COVID pandemic. "After Lillie, I had a falling apart."
"After Lillie, I do remember it was scary for me and 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 Rhett explained. "It's not like you want to call a buddy and be like, 'Hey, my wife is acting super strange.'"
"Lifeless is not the right word, but along the lines of dull," the country singer continued. "It felt like a hopeless place for me."
"In the back of my mind, I was like, 'This is not normal,'" Akins revealed. "I have experienced birthing children before and I've not felt this.'"
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