Former Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson East and her husband, pro football player Andrew East, have finally met their rainbow baby.
Just several days after the two-year anniversary of the miscarriage they suffered in October 2017, Shawn and Andrew became the parents of a beautiful baby girl, a secret they had kept from themselves, as well as their fan-base, until now.
RELATED: Shawn Johnson East and Husband Can’t Wait for Rainbow Baby 2 Years After Miscarriage
On November 4, Shawn and Andrew took to their respective Instagram accounts to reveal the birth of their first child, a daughter whose name they have decided not to share with the public just yet. Shawn wrote, “You are our everything. Welcome to the world baby girl.”
And Andrew shared a touching video of his little family of three enjoying some of their first moments together after bringing their baby girl home from the hospital. He simply captioned the video, “What up?”
Fans also don’t know exactly when Baby Girl East was born. In another video shared on Shawn’s Instagram story, the couple thanked their followers for giving them a “couple days” to enjoy them with their daughter privately.
“She’s the best thing ever,” Shawn said, before Andrew added, “Thank you, guys, thank you guys for giving us a couple of days for maternity, paternity leave. We are very excited to be announcing baby East to you guys and to be home and to have the greatest little daughter ever.”
The couple went on to describe the last few days as emotional. They called the birthing experience “crazy,” but didn’t get into much more detail than that, saying their “birth vlog” will go live sometime this week.
Thousands of their fans and their celebrity friends took to Instagram to congratulate the new parents on their adorable bundle of joy. Fellow Olympian Lindsay Vonn wrote, “Congrats!!!!!” And the wife of her former Dancing With the Stars partner, singer BC Jean Ballas, added, “Yay, you did it!!!! She’s beautiful. So proud of you both. Congratulations xx.”
The news of Baby Girl East’s birth comes just days after Shawn opened up a little bit more about the miscarriage she had in 2017. While a guest on former Married At First Sight stars, Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner‘s podcast, the 27-year-old mom talked about how she believed her miscarriage was payback for her uber-successful gymnastics career.
From the age of 3 to 20, Shawn’s whole life was gymnastics. And it was that dedication, determination, hard work, and God-given talent that turned her into one of the world’s most recognizable gold-medal Olympians.
However, as she revealed on the Hot Marriage. Cool Parents. podcast, the immense amount of training she had to put in to be the athlete that she was made her worry about life after retirement. Would all that training and stress on her body at a young age prevent her from having a family of her own?
And when she suffered a miscarriage at the age of 25, Shawn felt like her fears were becoming a reality. “That was always my fear — that I had put my body through so much and done so many extreme diets and delayed puberty and all of these things, that it would cause me to have trouble getting pregnant.”
“I had had testing done and blood work done and [doctors] said everything was good, which was a good reassurance. But again, at that time of miscarriage, I couldn’t help but think I did enough damage to my body at a young age that it was almost, like, payback.”
Despite doctors reassuring her that it wasn’t her fault in any way, Shawn said, “I felt so sad and guilty that I had done something wrong to lose this child. I remember that just bringing me to tears because I was like, ‘How can you say that?’ Cause I must’ve done something wrong.”
She continued:
“And [the doctor] just kept saying, ‘It wasn’t about being around a smoker or eating the wrong thing or accidentally having a glass of wine because you didn’t know you were pregnant. There is nothing you did that was wrong.'”
RELATED: Lauren Duggar Opens Up About Miscarriage in Touching Instagram Post
Nonetheless, thanks to her faith in God, and the support she and Andrew had around them during that difficult time in their life, Shawn has been able to faith in herself and her ability to both carry a child and be a mother.
“No matter what you go through, you will always come out of it.”
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