No better time than the present to stop and smell the roses.
Janet Jackson, who is expecting a baby with husband Wissam Al Mana, visited a florist near Regent's Park in North London Wednesday. The rarely photographed "Rhythm Nation" singer, 50, dressed her growing baby bump in a cowl-neck sweatshirt and "looked happy and very relaxed," an eyewitness tells E! News, adding that she spent 10-15 minutes looking at various arrangements. The pop star—who quietly wed her billionaire beau in 2012—"picked up a few types of the flowers." Janet and her bodyguard left in chauffeur-driven car and headed home.
Since announcing in April that she was delaying her world tour to start a family, the famously private musician has said very little about her pregnancy. But in the Oct. 24 issue of People (on stands now), Janet finally addressed her happy news, saying, "We thank God for our blessing."
A blessing indeed. "I think that if I'm really supposed to have kids, it will happen, if that's God's plan for me," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2009. After all, Janet joked to the magazine, "I've had so many people come up to me and say, 'My child was conceived by listening to your music.'"
For the youngest member of one of the most famous families in show business, starting a family of her own is a dream come true. "I'd love to have a family," the singer admitted to Access Hollywood in 2010. "But really, it's in God's hands. So if it's meant to be, it'll happen."
And so it is.
"She's doing very well. She's taking it easy," her brother Tito Jackson, 63, said in June on Andy Cohen's SiriusXM radio show. "She is off tour, protecting her health." Asked if the couple knows the sex of their child, Tito said his sister and brother-in-law are just "hoping for a healthy baby." The month prior, Janet's brother Jermaine Jackson, 61, proudly told reporters, "My sister Janet is my baby...a baby having a baby. We look at her like our little baby—and now she's grown and having a baby! I'm proud to be an uncle, and I can't wait to see how this baby is going to look."
Last month, a source told E! News the five-time Grammy winner is "resting" until her due date arrives. "She is aware of complications," the source said, "but as of now, doctors say she is OK."
Janet has felt "tired and sluggish" quite a bit, another insider revealed to E! News. "Janet isn't feeling that great. She has gained more weight than she anticipated. It hasn't been the easiest pregnancy at all. She is excited to have her baby, and that's the light at the end of this tunnel." Fortunately, Janet's "husband, family and friends have been very helpful during her pregnancy."