Happy Father’s Day to everyone! Monday Morning Quarterback’s Kalyn Kahler spoke with six members of the New England Patriots who have had children since winning Super Bowl LI to gain insight on the ups and downs of their parenting journeys.
FS Devin McCourty and RB Brandon Bolden had their kids on the same exact day. WR Chris Hogan had twins. CB Stephon Gilmore had a daughter the day he signed his Patriots contract. FB James Develin didn’t know the sex of his child until birth. OT Nate Solder didn’t know the sex of his child even after the birth.
It’s an extremely heart-warming article that’s worth a read. Here are my favorite excerpts from each player.
Brandon Bolden on having a psychic for a child
“We had already scheduled a C-section, because our first child was a C-section. We thought it was March 13th and just out of nowhere on the 10th, our son told us, ‘Yeah, my sister is going to be here tomorrow.’ Me and my wife laughed it off, like, Yeah, but we don’t have to go to the doctor until the 13th. He laughed and the next thing you know, my wife starts having these bad cramps from like 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. So it was like, Okay, we need to go to the hospital. We get to the hospital and they say, Oh yeah, you’re dilating, so we’re going to go ahead and get this party started. And we said to our son, ‘Oh, Brycen you were right, how did you know?’”
James Develin on superstitious athletes
“Our family always jokes that my wife is the whisperer in getting babies to go to sleep. She has a crazy good touch for that. It's funny, when Will gets a really good night of sleep, let’s say he goes eight or nine hours straight, the next night we try to do everything exactly the same. Put him in the same pajamas, feed him at the same time. We do everything exactly the same, and sometimes it works and sometimes it's just, you know, superstitious as all athletes seem to be. But we’ll try it every single time.”
Stephon Gilmore on parenting like a cornerback
“Now that we have two kids, we play man-to-man now, but before we could switch off and get a little break. Now we gotta pretty much have one every moment. The only time we get time to ourselves is when they are asleep at night.”
Chris Hogan on finding out about having twins
“I remember that day like it was yesterday. We went in for a routine sonogram and they were looking for the heartbeat, it was very early on, probably around 20 weeks or so, and the woman who was doing the sonogram goes, ‘I have news to tell you.’ And at first I was like, Oh geez, something is wrong. That was my immediate thought, but then she says, ‘There are two heartbeats in here.’ And my wife Ashley and I, the feeling was just like, it’s hard to describe, there were so many emotions that were going on. We didn’t expect it, we were so excited. And then we started thinking about what we were going to have to do, buy two of everything. All that stuff flowed in in the matter of a minute or two. It was a lot. But the overall emotion between the two of us was we were so excited and we just prayed for two healthy babies and a smooth pregnancy.”
Devin McCourty on the shirt he wore at the birth
“I made two shirts and my brother sent me one. I’m a big T-shirt guy, so I had to be prepared for the situation. I had All-Star Labor Coach and then I had another shirt to leave the hospital in, so I was well prepared. And luckily I had three shirts because it lasted longer than I expected.”
Nate Solder on finding out the gender
“It was a surprise. I was the one that announced it. For my older son, Hudson, I was so shocked that we had a baby in the whole process that I totally spaced out in telling everyone what the sex was. This is an infamous story now. The doctors go, ‘Nate, what’s the sex?’—and I don’t remember this—but I said, ‘How do I tell?’ With Charlie, seconds before she was born, I said, I’m not going to forget, I’m not going to forget. But once again, I spaced it. I was just so shocked with our new baby that they yelled at me again, ‘What’s the sex?’”