Mother-to-be Shawn Johnson East is opening up about how previously suffering a miscarriage helped her and husband Andrew East realize they are truly ready to start a family.
Shawn, who is due next week, explained on the upcoming Oct. 20 episode of Miraculous Mamas obtained, that her perspective on having kids changed after she and Andrew, 28, got pregnant for the first time.
“It was a surprise for both of us and we ended up losing … that pregnancy,” Shawn, 27, said of her miscarriage to host Liz Sandoz.
She shared on the podcast that in that moment she and Andrew went from “‘Holy, crap we’re going to have a kid,'” to “We’re ready to have a kid and like we want nothing else.”
Shawn added that the first pregnancy really got her in that mental state of being ready.
“As soon as I miscarried, I was like, ‘I want to try again. Like I want to still be pregnant, I want to do this.'”
However, recovering from the loss took some time, and Andrew encouraged Shawn to not rush into anything too soon.
“I went through that whole phase of it, it was almost like a postpartum depression because you have all these hormones leaving your body, which you have to deal with on top of the mentality, like the mental side of processing what it is you did just go through,” she told Sandoz.
“My husband was kind of like, ‘I think we need to take a break. I think we need to heal from this and process everything.'”
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And although Shawn will soon welcome her baby, she feels she isn’t as prepared as she wants to be.
“I don’t feel like you’ve ever ready to have a kid. Even now, like I’m ready to, I’m getting ready to pop a kid out here any day. I don’t feel ready. I don’t feel like you’re ever totally ready ’cause you don’t feel like you’re, you know financially there, or [that] you have the home or you have the stability. There’s always some reason — it’s daunting,” Shawn explained to Sandoz.
As Shawn and Andew prepare to become a family of three, the two are making sure they maintain a solid foundation within each other.
“We both are firm believers that the best way to raise a kid is to have the strongest relationship as a couple,” Shawn said.
“We’re nervous about making us a priority and being able to like keep that strong relationship in order to raise a kid.”
Shawn also revealed that she and East are waiting to find out the sex of the baby.
Shawn’s stardom first rose when she clinched four medals during the 2008 Summer Olympics with the U.S. women’s gymnastics team in Beijing, and it continued to soar as she won her season of Dancing with the Stars in 2009, after famously missing her prom to compete on the show.
Meanwhile, long snapper Andrew has played for several NFL teams including the Oakland Raiders, Seattle Seahawks and, most recently, the Washington Redskins.
Despite the couple’s impressive athleticism, Shawn told PEOPLE in August she will be “good” if her child isn’t into sports like mom and dad.
“We have both comedically joked that so many people expect our baby to be an athlete that they’ll probably be an artist or a musician or something,” said Shawn, “which we’re totally good with.”
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