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Future dancer! Jenna Johnson and husband Val Chmerkovskiy have revealed the sweet name that they have chosen for their first child.
“Rome Valentin Chmerkovskiy ✨,” Johnson, 28, wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, February 7, alongside the first photo of her son’s face. “Cannot believe it’s been 4 weeks of being completely infatuated with you. Thank you for bursting my heart wide open and showing me what unconditional love is. Mommy and Daddy love you so much!!!!”
Alongside the photo, which showed Rome in a matching shirt and pants set, the new mom added: “The left dimple melts me every time.”
The So You Think You Can Dance alum gave birth to her baby boy on Tuesday, January 10.
“Our world is forever changed 🤍,” Johnson wrote via Instagram one day later on Wednesday, January 11, sharing a photo as the new parents held their son’s tiny finger.
After announcing their newborn’s arrival, their fellow Dancing With the Stars colleagues flocked to social media to share in the happy news.
“This was the best early birthday gift, getting that call yesterday,” pregnant Lindsay Arnold, who is currently expecting her second child with husband Sam Cusick wrote via Instagram Story at the time. “Beyond happy for this sweet family. Congrats @jennajohnson @valentin.”
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Chmerkovskiy’s older brother, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, also chimed in, sharing a string of red heart emojis.
The Utah native and Val, who wed in 2019, announced in July 2022 that they were expecting baby No. 1 after previous fertility struggles.
“We had actually stopped trying to conceive for about 6 months to mentally/emotionally give ourselves a break… so the shock, disbelief, and sheer joy in this moment is a memory I will never forget,” Johnson wrote via Instagram that July, sharing footage from the first moment she saw the positive pregnancy test. “After two years of infertility, and hundreds of negative tests after negative tests, it was heart-wrenching at times to stay optimistic and made me question whether I would ever have this opportunity.”
The married dancers — who later revealed in August 2022 that they were expecting a son — had documented their journey along the way, with Johnson even predicting the types of parents they would become.
“I already know that it’s gonna be ‘good cop, bad cop’ and I’m gonna be the bad cop. I know [Val’s] gonna give into everything and be such a little sucker,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2022, noting she also wasn’t nervous about giving birth. “[Val is] gonna be very involved. He wants to style him. They’re gonna have the matching outfits.”
While the Jo+Jax designer and the Ukraine native have been ready to soak in their little one’s milestones, they do not plan to push him to follow in their dancing footsteps. “I think everyone expects us to put him into dance. I want him to just be athletic and try all of the sports anything he wants to do,” Johnson told Us at the time. “I’ll support him, but it’s kind of inevitable. Like, how could we not use our resources and put him into dance?”
