Are those the pitter-patter of little cleats? Arizona Cardinals star JJ Watts announced that his wife, soccer player Kealia Ohai, is pregnant with the couple’s first child.
“Could not be more excited ❤️💙,” the defensive end, 33, gushed via Instagram on Thursday, June 2, alongside a carousel of maternity photos with Ohai, 30. The pair grinned broadly in the sweet images, holding each other close while laughing and gazing at each other adoringly. The Chicago Red Stars athlete and the football player cuddled up and cradled her baby bump together in the fourth and final photo.
In her own Instagram post, in which she shared two of the same photos, Ohai revealed her due date. “Oct 2022,” she captioned the pictures, adding a white heart.
The athletes, who tied the knot in February 2020, began dating four years prior after meeting through Ohai’s sister, Megan Cushing, and Cushing’s husband — Watt’s Houston Texans teammate — Brian Cushing.
Upon announcing their engagement via social media in May 2019, the NFL star called himself “the luckiest man in the world.” Less than one year later, he followed up the post by tweeting, “Best day of my life. Without question,” alongside a series of romantic photos from his wedding to Ohai.
While Watt and Ohai are each other’s biggest cheerleaders off the field, they have each made multiple sacrifices for their respective sports, particularly during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m so proud of her. I’m so grateful to have her in my life,” the Wisconsin native told NFL Total Access in 2020 about his wife, who was playing in Utah at the time, which meant they couldn’t see each other due to quarantine regulations.
“For me to watch her play soccer — which is one of my favorite things to do, I love watching her compete, I love watching her do what she loves — I have to give up being able to actually see her, to physically see her,” Watt explained at the time. “It’s bittersweet but I’ve been loving watching her play and she looks great and it’s a lot of fun, but trust me, I can’t wait to see her again at the end of the month.”
One month before they tied the knot, the professional athlete revealed he will always have Ohai’s back.
“Whatever you have to do, if we have to fly, we have to travel, we have to do whatever it is,” Watt said in January 2020 of the Utah native’s trade to Chicago. “Do what you can possibly do now to make your soccer career as great as possible, because you’re going to create memories that will last a lifetime.”
