Jason Mesnick and Molly Mesnick are one of the few couples from ABC’s The Bachelor franchise to find their happily ever after.

Now after tying the knot in 2010, the pair are preparing to welcome their first child together this spring. But though his brood is growing, Jason — father to son Ty, 7, from a previous marriage — is more than ready for the road ahead.

“I remember blending families as a kid [when] my parents got divorced [and] my stepdad came in. It’s not as easy as people think. It’s a challenging thing,” Mesnick told Celebuzz at Warner Bros. TV’s 25th Celebration event held at The Bachelor mansion in Agoura Hills, Calif.

“But, the good part about it… is that Molly and I already went through blending her with my son Ty. And, right now, it’s making sure Ty’s ready more than anybody else. I think I’ve already kind of lived through that stuff. I know what it’s like to have a baby. I know what it’s like to have a spouse. [Now], I’m making sure everyone else is ready.”

Just months away from her late March due date, Molly is nesting for their new bundle of joy. “She’s all into it. And I’m being told, ‘Stay out of it.’ And that’s cool,” Jason said. “So, we’ve got boxes showing up every day, the nursery’s being built. We’ve got everything you ever need. Now, it just needs to be put together.”

But even as preparation fall into place, it’s still too soon to say what their new addition will be named. “We don’t know what we’re having, so we have to have multiple names for each sex,” Jason explained, adding that the baby’s middle name might be inspired by a grandparent.

“I remember going through the first time, picking a name is real hard. It’s like you’re coming from a male’s point a view, a female’s point of view and your own personal histories,” he continued. “‘I like that name, but that a girl’s name; that guy’s name was a weirdo in high school, so I’m not going to pick that name.’ [But] I think we’re getting close. We got a couple boy names, a couple girl names that we like, but maybe we need some help trying to figure it out.”

One thing’s for sure: The little one will have plenty of children’s products from the couple’s new brand, Play. “It’s all about healthy kids, healthy families and we make really cool products for tough [kids],” Jason said. “When you buy our products, we go and give back to kids’ health. We help build playgrounds and we give back sports equipment… to schools who don’t have that kind of stuff.”

Now looking forward to his hopeful future, Jason, 36, is at peace with his past — which includes him saying “I do” to Molly, 28, in front of family members, friends and ABC cameras in February 2010, shortly after famously ditching Bachelor fiancée Melissa Rycroft for his now wife.

“I got what I wanted. It’s not the perfect way to get there, but I met my wife on the show and that’s good,” Jason said. “And everybody else who was a part of that experience, I think we’re all in a good place now.”

And Mesnick is focused on guiding his family through the next few months. ”My goal throughout the whole thing is, more than the ups and downs of every day, is that [Molly is] healthy and the baby’s healthy. Being healthy as a pregnant women may be like going for walks, which is not easy to do because you don’t feel so good. And, making sure she’s taking in the right nutrients for your baby because all you want is a healthy baby. So, that’s what I challenge ourselves with every day, being as healthy as we can be.”

The current season of The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8PM on ABC.

From bachelorhood to fatherhood: Jason and Molly Malaney Mesnick have announced that they’re expecting their first child together in late March.

The couple met on season 13 of the hit ABC reality show when Jason actually chose Dancing with the Stars contestant, Melissa Rycroft, as his bride-to-be. He later faced intense media scrutiny after one of the most controversial After the Final Rose episodes in the show’s history when he broke up with Rycroft and later proposed to Molly.

What does Molly have to say about their new arrival?

“Our family is getting a little bit bigger,” the 28-year-old revealed to People.

“I’m into my second trimester and I feel really good.”

Jason, 36, who’s already a father to 7-year-old Ty from a previous marriage, says Ty has already expressed excitement about his little brother or sister.

“He’s been so excited to be a big brother,” Jason revealed. ”He’s been asking me for years. He’s always wanted to be a big brother.”

The happy couple, who wed in 2010, decided to spring the news onto Ty in an unconventional way — by playing a game of hangman.

“The answer,” Jason explained, ”was ‘Tyler is going to be a big brother.’”

“We played the game and he looked at Molly and I and said ‘Really?’” he happily confessed, “Molly made him a t-shirt that says ‘Big Brother’ on it and he’s really proud. He wore it to school.”

Send your well wishes to Jason and Molly in the comments section below.

Melissa Rycroft isn’t down for the count just yet.

The reality lovely, who was famously dumped by Bachelor Jason Mesnick for the runner-up last week on national television after WINNING the show, will reportedly take the place of the ailing Nancy O’Dell on Dancing with the Stars.

People reports that Rycroft, despite only having a few days to rehearse, will dance on tonight’s premiere.

Access Hollywood‘s O’Dell had to pull out on March 5 after injuring her knee.

Rycroft was given the heave-ho by fiance Mesnick on last week’s The Bachelor: After the Rose special in a move that the show’s creators swear wasn’t staged.

Melissa, understandably upset, referred to Mesnick as a “bastard” when she found out that she was being replaced by her defeated competition Molly Malaney.

DWTS‘s new season hasn’t even begun yet, and the show has already had to replace two dancers.

Along with O’Dell, singer Jewel had to withdraw from the competition after also injuring her knee and will reportedly be replaced by Girl Next Door Holly Madison.

British men are never fond of this American sensitivity thing.

So you can only imagine how Bachelor: London Calling’s Matt Grant felt about watching Bachelor Jason Mesnick crying every 15 minutes or so in front of millions of television viewers.

“Sometimes it made me a little bit sick in my mouth,” Grant tells Celebuzz exclusively. “Sometimes it just made me laugh.”

While a friend of the most recent Bachelor (“I’ve always liked Jason”), Grant says the constant waterworks were too much for him. “I’ve always been a follower of the stiff-upper-British-lip,” says Grant. “Men shouldn’t cry on television. But maybe that’s me being British.”

“I wanted to take him seriously, but when he was crying, it was really hard.” 

And did Grant ever shed a tear while on the show? “There was that time I was cooking and was dicing up onions,” he says dryly. “I believe I welled up slightly. But that’s it.”

Grant was especially troubled how in the After the Rose program, the tears for ousted bachelor pick Melissa Rycroft turned into lip-lock with Molly Malaney on the same couch a commercial break later. “How could he be instantly snogging Molly?” he asks. “Half of me wanted to throw a brick into my TV.”

Grant, who has found happiness after his Bachelor experience with girlfriend Sarah Robarts, said he understands the pressures of the pick and respects Mesnick’s reversal. “At least Jason had the balls to put up his hands and say, ‘you know what, I screwed up and picked the wrong one.’” Further, the on-air switch might have been the “the only way to get Molly back.”

The Brit has met his American counterpart several times and even met him with Molly. “It’s for real,” he says. “This is a couple that is genuinely interested in each other.”

“Besides, they’ve both humiliated themselves on national television,” says Grant. “That bond alone will keep them together for a very long time.”

Addressing the biggest TV-related controversy of the week, the creator of ABC’s The Bachelor says that this season’s outrageous finale wasn’t staged, and that Bachelor Jason Mesnick dumped Melissa Rycroft and went back to Molly Malaney all of his own accord.

Mike Fleiss tells People that the shocking After the Rose special in which Mesnick broke off his engagement and reunited to his runner-up was ” a remarkable twist.”

Fleiss says accusations that the switcheroo was planned from the beginning in a bid for media attention are “patently untrue.”

“It was [Jason's] choice in New Zealand who he proposed to,” Fleiss elaborates, noting that things changed after the finale’s rose ceremony: “[Mesnick] was not in love with Melissa anymore and he was in love with Molly and he needed to make a change.”

Fleiss says that he learned a week after Mesnick’s proposal that Mesnick and Rycroft were not getting along. He adds that, at that time, he was trying to convince runner-up Molly to be the new Bachelorette. (The job went to third place girl Jillian Harris.)

“My first thought was, ‘Oh, too bad,’” Fleiss recalls. “My next thought was, ‘Wow, that’s almost too good!’ At that point, the decision was made to bring all three parties into the studio to film After the Final Rose, the most shocking After the Final Rose in Bachelor history. It was never anyone’s plan.”

“We couldn’t not show that,” Fleiss says. Of course not. This is reality television, after all.

Readers, have your say in our poll: Was Jason Mesnick’s flip-flop staged, or was it a genuine change of heart?

She made it to the top of the Bachelor heap and had the engagement ring.

But six weeks after she trembled with joy over Jason Mesnick‘s proposal, Melissa Rycroft was tearfully handing him back the ring on national television and calling her former love “a bastard.” Then she attempted a dignified walk-off in massive high heels.

Nonetheless Rycroft tells People magazine, “I’m going to be fine.” Though she is still single, she added. “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me or that I was a victim in all of this. I’m going to be okay.”

“It was a life lesson and I wouldn’t be where I am now,” she said. “I remember sitting on the set going, ‘I wish you hadn’t put the ring on my finger, I wish things hadn’t gotten so far.’”

But then again after the show ended, she knew things were not right: “The few times we did see each other, we were trying to find out what it was on the show that attracted us to each other.”

Have your say in the comments section: Did Melissa Rycroft deserved to get dumped by Jason Mesnick?

Her predecessor waffled like Hamlet off his meds, but Jillian Harris says she’s ready to find love as the next Bachelorette.

The 29-year-old interior designer and super fan-favorite was introduced to America as the new object of attention for the yet unfilmed Bachelorette edition. The announcement came at the end of The Bachelor: After the Final Rose sequel last night.

“I’m so excited,” Jillian said on the soundstage as the crowd roared it’s approval.

Harris made it to the top three on Jason Mesnick’s Bachelor episode before losing out to the final two contestants — much to the dismay of the show’s fan base.

Indeed Bachelor host Chris Harrison gushed making Harris the Bachelorette was “a pretty easy decision.”

“There was one girl this season who really captured America’s heart.”

Harris said she plans to avoid the mistakes of the past season as she’ll have the contestants vying for her hand. “I hope to make the right choice the first time,” she says.

Do you think Jillian will find true love on the show? Let us know in our poll.

In a remarkable, even shocking twist of fate, Bachelor Jason Mesnick chose and then dumped finalist/fiance Melissa Rycroft in the show’s season finale. He then took the opportunity to immediately pursue a relationship with the show’s runner-up Molly Malaney.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Mesnick ended the official Bachelor series proposing to Melissa and sending a tearful Molly off in the limo. But Melissa’s happy days with her Bachelor were short lived. In the six weeks since the finale wrapped, Mesnick had a change of heart and desired his Molly.

He broke the news of his change of heart to  Melissa in front of television cameras after their happy finale aired. While spending most of the time on the couch with watery eyes -  incidentally captured on camera -  and insisted that he “hated” himself, he still broke off the engagement. He said that his feelings had changed. Melissa dramatically handed back her engagement ring and then took off.

Cue more tears for the apparently tortured Mesnick.

Out came Molly who quickly forgave her man for being overlooked once. With the couch seat still warm from his former fiance’s butt, the previously engaged and tearful bachelor was making out on it with the woman he had sent away on the show’s finale.

Mesnick said he was “following my heart.”

“If some people don’t like it, I get that. It’s not the classiest or coolest thing in the world,” he explained, in one of the bigger understatements of the day.

Indeed, when Mesnick appeared on Jimmy Kimmel following the Bachelor, he took some hard knocks. Kimmel’s other guest, Evangeline Lilly from Lost, said she didn’t want to stick around to meet him.

“I’m so disgusted by him I don’t want to be in the same city,” she told Kimmel. “I’m afraid he might turn to me and say, you know…”

What do you think? Was Mesnick following his heart and being truthful, or is he the biggest jerk of all time? Let us know in our poll below and our comments section!