JD Vance and wife Usha Vance announce they’re expecting fourth child

JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, announced on Tuesday that they are expecting their fourth child this summer.

“We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy,” the pair announced in a post shared on social media. “Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July.”

The Vances, who met as students at Yale Law School and married in 2014, have two sons and one daughter, Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. Usha Vance, 40, has already made history as the country’s first south Asian and Hindu second lady but does so again, as the first vice-presidential spouse to be pregnant while her husband served in office.

“During this exciting and hectic time, we are particularly grateful for the military doctors who take excellent care of our family and for the staff members who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children,” the Vances said.

Throughout his political career, the vice-president has repeatedly raised concerns about declining birth rates in the US, and in a speech at the anti-abortion March for Life rally last year, declared: “ I want more babies in the United States of America.”

In an interview last year with conservative commentator Meghan McCain, Usha Vance had said her husband “thinks he might like to have a fourth”. She laughed then, and added: “We’ll see where that leads.”

While this pregnancy marks the first second lady to have a baby while in office, two first ladies have given birth during their husbands’ White House term. Frances Cleveland, wife of former president Grover Cleveland and the youngest first lady in history at 21 years of age, gave birth to daughter Esther in 1893. Esther was the Cleveland’s second child and was born in a bedroom on the second floor of the White House.

Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of John F Kennedy, gave birth to their third child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, in 1963. He was born on Cape Cod prematurely and died at just two days old.

The White House congratulated the couple on social media. “The most pro-family administration in history!” the official account said.

The Vances’ pregnancy announcement follows the news last month that Karoline Leavitt, the 28-year-old White House press secretary, was expecting her second child, a baby girl in May. Katie Miller, the rightwing podcaster and wife of Stephen Miller, also announced that she was pregnant with the couple’s fourth child.

The Vance children have traveled with their parents on major trips, memorably on a weeklong visit to Italy and India, where JD Vance was photographed carrying his daughter and trying to get them to pose for a family photo in front of the Taj Mahal.

“I think that there’s always a limelight on the kids, and that’s both good and bad,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News last month. “Our eight-year-old really doesn’t like it. He wants to have as private of a life as possible. When we come to an event in the White House and he sees the cameras, he doesn’t love it, and so we try to keep him out of that limelight as much as possible.” By contrast, he said his five-year-old, “who’s a bit more like me” probably enjoys the attention “too much”.

He also said in the interview that his marriage was “as strong as it’s ever been”, dismissing online rumors speculating otherwise.