Better safe than sorry. Andrew East quarantined away from his and Shawn Johnson East’s 14-month-old daughter, Drew, during his COVID-19 battle and hated being away from the toddler.
“Aside from the physical discomfort I felt, I think the worst part for me was not getting to hold Drew,” the professional football player, 29, recently told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting his partnership with on-demand medical exam kit TytoCare. “I self-isolated in our home and it was very challenging not being able to get to be a father. Whenever Drew saw me from across the house, she would get excited and run towards me and I would have to turn my back on her, which was awful.”
Not only was the athlete worried about Drew contracting coronavirus, but Shawn, as well. “It was a major concern since she had just found out she was pregnant again,” the Indiana native explained. “We wanted to be really careful since it was in the first few weeks of the pregnancy and so I self-isolated for 10 days. … As soon as I got the illness, I really started to think of all the ‘what if’s’ and so we did everything we could to prevent anyone else from getting it.”
Andrew called his COVID battle “humbling,” telling Us, “I got lucky in the sense that I didn’t have too many complications. Unfortunately, we had close family seriously struggle through the illness so that opened our eyes to how serious things can get. After a few days, I was feeling more myself and am no longer showing symptoms.”
The long snapper first opened up about his health scare in his and Shawn’s pregnancy reveal earlier this month via YouTube. “We were in this time of celebration and we wanted to tell her parents and her friends [about the baby], then I ended up having to friggin’ self-isolate for 10 days,” Andrew said at the time.
While they await baby No. 2, the couple are loving life with their “rock star” daughter.
“She’s already walking, working on running, drinking from cups, eating food with a fork and reprimanding me in baby talk,” he told Us. “We are having a blast. Drew seems to be very social, confident and mischievous. I think she gets her social tendencies from me and her mischief from Shawn.”
The Vanderbilt University grad gushed that he wouldn’t change their quarantine experience “for the world,” noting that it has helped him and the Olympian gymnast, 29, “fully step into [their] rules as parents” during Drew’s period of “growth and learning.”
While hanging at home, the pair have used Tytocare, which connects them to doctors for on-demand medical exams from their house. “My family loves it because we can avoid the germ-filled waiting room unless it’s absolutely necessary and get a real-time diagnosis immediately,” Andrew told Us of the handheld exam kit. “It gives us total peace of mind when one of us is under the weather – truly priceless as a parent.”
With reporting by Diana Cooper