A teen boy’s overjoyed reaction to his mother’s pregnancy is going viral on TikTok.
“I know how much she’s wanted a fourth baby,” 14-year-old Cooper Klausner tells TODAY.com. “So, I wanted it so bad too.”
“It’s a dream come true for me,” Cooper’s mom Ashleigh Klausner, whose other children are 9 and 5, tells TODAY.com. Ashleigh had breast cancer that went into remission in 2021, so becoming pregnant at age 40 was an especially sweet surprise.
Last week, the photographer from Bennett, Colorado, posted a TikTok video in which she showed Cooper a positive pregnancy test. Both are crying. The video has more than 6 million views and is captioned, “Telling my firstborn he’s going to be a big brother again.”
“Mom!” Cooper exclaimed, throwing his arms around Ashleigh, adding, “No way! I’m so happy for you.”
Ashleigh said, “I just took it. Can you believe it?”
Cooper answered, “I can’t believe it,” repeating, “Oh my gosh.”
When Cooper asks if his mom is going to tell anyone, she said, “You’re the first one.”
Ashleigh, who is eight weeks pregnant, tells TODAY.com that after she tested positive, she yelled for Cooper from the bathroom, where she was filming. “It was pure, joyful shock,” she says, adding, “I started shaking and crying.”
Ashleigh says her son knew she was pregnant before her husband Andrew, who was not home at the time.
“But I still would have told Cooper first,” she says.
“I knew how excited he was going to be for me and for this baby. He has such a sweet and tender heart,” she tells TODAY.com. She says she knew the pregnancy would be a shock to her husband, “and not in the best of ways!”
“I knew my longtime sidekick would give me the reaction I desired. He did not disappoint,” Ashleigh says.
Years ago, she adds, Andrew foiled a video she wanted to film with Cooper and Austin in which she told them she was expecting Benji. “He forgot to push ‘record,’” she says. This time, Ashleigh made sure to capture the moment.
Cooper tells TODAY.com that his mom’s pregnancy was “a complete surprise” to him.
“I can’t really describe it,” he says. “I was very surprised and very happy. It took me a second to realize what was going on. When it hit me I was just super excited. I was only 5 years old when my mom went through her surgeries so I don’t remember too much of that. But I know how much she struggled during her medication process. She was always hot and sick.”
Ashleigh always thought she’d have “50 million” kids until she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016.
“I thought, ‘This is not how life is supposed to be,’” says Ashleigh. “It really threw a wrench in everything and I thought I’d be leaving my boys.”
Ashleigh went on to have a third child and in March 2021, she ended her cancer therapy and was declared in remission. She says this baby, due May 6, will be her last.
“I feel like this baby will complete our family,” she says. “I really, truly do.”
The reaction from her two youngest sons was also delightful, says Ashleigh.
“Austin was super excited and leapt over the bed,” she says. “Benji, my spitfire … pretended to cry … and then said, ‘I’m just kidding! I’m so excited to be a big brother.’ He said, ‘I’ll teach them how to play video games.’”