Gypsy-Rose Blanchard’s partner Ken Urker is “soaking in” being in the role of “girl dad” to their baby daughter, Aurora Raina Urker.
Blanchard and her boyfriend exclusively shared with PEOPLE ahead of the season 2 premiere of her reality series Life After Lockup what fatherhood has been like for Urker since they welcomed Aurora on Dec. 28.
“It’s adorable. It really is,” says, Blanchard, 33. “It’s one of those heart-touching moments because it’s like, this is new for the both of us, but also Ken was young when we met, and so it’s adorable and really heartwarming to see him grow and mature through this process.”
“I’ve learned that he is a lot more patient than I gave him credit for,” she adds. “So it’s been wonderful to watch him grow as a person through the last year, but also step into this new mature role.”
Ken Urker/Instagram
As for Urker, he listed his favorite parts of fatherhood, so far.
“I love her to death, and every day I get to see her grow more and more in all these little ways,” he explains. “Her eyes opening wider as the weeks go on, and her starting to develop a little bit of a social smile now, and just watching her get bigger.”
“We have a baby scale that we weigh her on, that our neighbor let us borrow, and just watching that number grow and watching the amount of food she eats increases,” Urker continues. “I know it just sounds so basic, but it is so much fun for us to just watch her develop more and more each week, grow more hair, figuring out where her eye color is going to be.”
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard/Instagram
“I really am just soaking in all these moments and enjoying them to the fullest,” the proud dad concludes of his time with Aurora, with Blanchard adding, “I want to spoil her and just make her happy.”
She previously told PEOPLE that Ken picked the name Aurora.
“Some people think that it’s because of the Disney Princess,” explained Blanchard, a Munchausen by proxy victim who was famously abused and infantilized by her mother, referencing speculation that the name was inspired by Sleeping Beauty. Through her early 20s, Blanchard was made to believe she was a child, and made frequent trips to Disney parks due to fraudulent claims her mother made to children’s charities.
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However, the name stemmed from the aurora borealis.
“Back whenever Ken and I were together seven years ago, both of us had a fascination with the Northern Lights, and the proper term is the aurora borealis,” she said in December of when she and Urker dated during her time in prison for her role in the killing of her mother, Dee Dee.
The couple’s relationship started as pen pals during her prison stay.
“I think it was maybe in 2018, we wrote each other’s future kid’s name on pieces of paper and Aurora is what we both picked without even knowing each other was picking it,” she added.
Seven years later, Urker described to PEOPLE who he was back then.
“When I first reached out to Gypsy, I was 24 and I was just living a bachelor life, and when I reached out to Gypsy, there was never the intention of developing a love for her and ending up in a relationship,” says Urker in February 2025. “It was purely out of support and compassion. But I guess that’s another example of you just never know what’s going to happen in life, and I’m happy that we are where we are now.”
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