The sportscaster welcomed her son via surrogate on June 28.
Erin Andrews is finally a mom! In an interview with Today.com, the 45-year-old sportscaster recalled the "10 years of hell" she went through before she and her husband, NHL alum Jarret Stoll, welcomed their son, Mack, via surrogate last month.
Prior to Mack's birth, Andrews underwent 10 years of IVF, stopping only for cervical cancer treatment in 2016. The process got to be so hard that Andrews and Stoll wouldn't even say the words "the treatment didn't work."
"I'd call him and be like, 'I'm in the drive-thru of McDonald's again, having a sausage biscuit breakfast sandwich because we just got bad news,'" Andrews said. "It was 10 years of hell."
Things took a particularly bad turn two years ago when Andrews and Stoll lost twins via surrogacy.
"That was really hard," she said. "I really struggled mentally. I didn't handle it very well... I kind of tried to push it aside and act like everything was OK."
Eventually, Andrews broke down crying while on a plane.
"I just could not stop crying," she recalled. "[Mack] was our golden embryo. He was our last hope."
When it came time for Andrews and Stoll's surrogate to give birth, Andrews was nervous to be in the delivery room because "I get really queasy, and I've been known to pass out," she said.
But when the nurse informed Andrews that the surrogate wanted to hold her hand, the sportscaster did just that.
"I went and I grabbed her hand -- and she had this tear coming out of her eye," Andrews said. "We're so into sports in our family and we were cheering for her like she was our quarterback. She pushed once and he came out!"
During an appearance on the Today show on Friday, Andrews opened up more about that special moment.
"He came fast. My man was ready. He's got a good little head on him. He was fast, and they gave them to her, and put him on her, and cleaned him up, and then gave him to us, and it was just like, 'Hello, how are you?'" Andrews said with a laugh. "We have this picture when he was born and I am just kissing my surrogate's head and my husband is holding on to the nurse like he just won the Stanley Cup. It's the perfect picture of surrogacy and what we've been through."
Now that Mack is here, Andrews told Today.com, "I want the connection with him. I can't wait for the chemistry."
"I'm so far from being maternal in my life because I'm on a football field and I'm working with men," she said. "I keep staring at him. I want to study everything about him. I want to make up for lost time."
During her morning show appearance, Andrews added that, thus far, motherhood has been "great."
"Luckily, this is my off-season, my husband's off-season right now too," she said. "I finally watched a little bit of football highlights with him yesterday, and I said to my husband, 'Take a video of this, this is my dream!'"
As for what she hopes others will take away from her tough road, Andrews told the digital site, "Going through this whole journey, you think you're alone. You're not alone."
"For so long I just wanted to be quiet about it. [I'd think,] 'Please don't say my name loud in the waiting room.' But then you look around, these places are packed. You're not the only one going through this," she said on Friday's episode. "I felt like if I could be a voice, maybe somebody people could look at and be like, 'She's going through it too,' it would help the whole process for all of us."
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