How Clare Crawley Plans to Tell Daughter Rowen About Her Time on The Bachelorette - E! Online (2025)

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Bachelor Nation's Clare Crawley Expecting First Baby

For Clare Crawley, The Bachelorette did not prove to be the perfect place to fall in love.

But while it turned out her future husband was not in that room (nor was he handing out roses on The Bachelor, The Bachelor Winter Games or the Mexican beaches of Paradise), she knows she was there for the right reasons.

And that's the message she plans to deliver to her and husband Ryan Dawkins' 9-month-old daughter Rowen one day.

"I want to always be the example of real and Mom was trying her best," the Sacramento, Calif.-bred hairstylist explained in an exclusive interview with E! News. "Mom was putting herself out there. Mom was believing in herself. Mom was following her heart. And regardless of if it's a reality show or something else in life, I want to be the example for Rowen of, she followed her heart, she did what she wanted to do."

And though her journey was certainly dramatic at times, it eventually led Clare to Mascot Sports CEO Ryan, who was, as she previously detailed to E!, "in my backyard the whole time."

Following an on-and-off engagement to final rose recipient Dale Moss,"I was very broken," Clare admitted, "and in a very dark spotcoming off of my previous relationshipthat was just the worst example of what relationships are."

So while she recognized that Ryan—already a dad of two from a previous relationship—was "definitely boyfriend materialand future husband material," she recounted, "Iwasn't ready for that. I was just in such a bad spot and I knew for somebody this amazing, I needed to bring amazing to the table as well."

Which is why she walked away.

"He said, 'Take as much time as you need,'" Clare shared. "And so I did."

Months later, having taken the time to heal, she tossed out an idea for a date night.

"I finally messaged him back, and I was like, 'Hey, do you want to go to a baseball game?'" she recounted. "And that kind of started it off again, and we went to the game." Since then, she added, "It was just game on. We were together every day after that."

And Rowen has proved to have a few tricks up her tiny sleeve.

She was barely seven months old when she took her first steps, mere days after she mastered crawling. "One day, we were all just out here, and me being the stage mom that I am, I was videotaping her," Clare recounted. "And she just took off and started walking to my husband."

Stunned, said Clare, "I just started bawling because I was like, 'God, this little human is just learning things and growing and every day it's something different.'"

But while the walking was impressive, Clare's favorite milestone thus far was a bit more subtle.

"Her being a surrogate baby, one of my worries was, 'How is she going to know I'm her mom?'" Clare explained. "But she truly looks for me in a crowded room. When she's hurt, she reaches for me. When she doesn't feel good, when she's tired, she reaches for me in a crowded room. It just goes to show, it doesn't matter where our little babies come from or how they come into this world, they know who their mama is, they know who their dad is."

And it's a role Clare was all too eager to accept.

"I was in shock for a good week," she admitted of the days after Rowen's arrival. "I was almost frozen because it was something I wanted so bad. And even when we found out our surrogate was pregnant with her, it was like, I'm not going to let myself feel because of fears of, what if this doesn't happen?"

After years of romances not really going in her favor, she acknowledged, "I thought, 'Is this really happening for me? Is this my moment? Is this my time?' I needed to soak it in for a good week to be like, she’s here and she's healthy and she's okay. And after that, it was, like, floodgates of, she's here. I have her. It's everything I ever wanted."

And Clare's not the only franchise alum currently looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Raise a glass to Bachelor Nation's still-strong couples (and pour a little out for those who've since called it quits).