Briana Wolfsmith, daughter of RHOC’s Vicki Gunvalson, expecting first child

Briana Wolfsmith, Vicki Gunvalson's daughter, is pregnant with her first child. Photo from Vicki Gunvalson's Facebook page.

For Vicki Gunvalson, it’s been a long season on The Real Housewives of Orange County, so the happy news that her daughter is expecting a baby is a turn in the right direction for the reality star.

Over the course of the beginning of season seven of the popular Bravo show, Gunvalson begins by dealing with her failing marriage. She and her husband Donn separated at the end of season six, and at the beginning of the current season, Vicki put her house up for sale, which was an emotional decision for her.

After the heart-wrenching decision to sell, her daughter, Briana, came to her with the news that her doctor had found tumors near her thyroid and it could be cancer. From the time the tumors were found to the time Briana was wheeled into surgery, Vicki made herself sick with worry for her daughter, agonizing over every single decision that was made in regard to her health. After her surgery, Briana was able to tell her mother they got all the tumors and also removed her thyroid, which meant that Briana would have to take synthetic thyroid for the rest of her life, but it also meant she was likely cancer-free. After the tumors were biopsied, it was revealed that none of them was cancerous and Briana was out of the woods.

In addition to dealing with her daughter’s illness and her own separation and impending divorce, Vicki had to deal with her friends’ opinion of her new boyfriend, Brooks Ayers. Gretchen Rossi’s live-in boyfriend Slade Smiley accused Brooks of being a deadbeat dad and not paying his child support payments. Ironically, Smiley had been accused of just that himself. Aside from Smiley, some of the other women on the show said they felt uneasy about Brooks because of his and Vicki’s behavior and how often Vicki called him. The women observed Vicki and Brooks calling each other at least twice a day and giving each other what they called “daily affirmations,” which were either statements of their love for one another or quotes from other people that they felt represented their love for each other. Vicki acknowledged that the behavior might seem odd to her friends but said she didn’t care because she loved Brooks and would stand by him no matter what.

On the May 1 show came Vicki’s biggest heartbreak of all. Briana invited her mother out to dinner to meet her boyfriend, Ryan Culberson, and dropped a bombshell on her mother. She and Ryan had just gone to Las Vegas, picked up a marriage license and gone to the nearest chapel to get married. Vicki was stunned into silence. In her voice-over, she said she was so upset because Ryan didn’t ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage and didn’t give her daughter the opportunity to have a big, glorious wedding like she deserved. Briana said the two decided to get married quickly because of her cancer scare and the fact that Ryan, a U.S. Army Soldier, had been deployed in Afghanistan. They realized that life was short, she said, and they wanted to be together as soon as they could. The couple assured Vicki that they still wanted the big wedding, and they would have it later, but they didn’t want to wait to get married.

The ceremony is planned, and Star Magazine said it would be happening later this month.

“The only issue I have is that we are over budget,” Vicki said in a Star Magazine interview. “We are at about $47,000, but who’s counting? We spent a little bit more on food and the venue, which we think is so important. We spent money where it counts.”

The vow renewal ceremony will be held in Santa Barbara, where the couple will exchange their vows on a cliff that overlooks the ocean. The sun will be setting as guests enjoy the reception right after the ceremony. According to the International Business Times, there will be between 75 to 100 guests.

According to Us Weekly, the pregnancy was a surprise, but a happy one, to the Orange County reality star, who said her, “love tank is full!”

One source told Us Weekly that Briana is roughly four months along in her pregnancy, and both she and Ryan are happy and can’t wait to start their family.