Feb. 13 (UPI) — Celebrity couple Derek and Hannah Jeter are expecting their first child.
Hannah, a 26-year-old model, announced Monday in an essay for The Player’s Tribune dedicated to Derek, a 42-year-old retired MLB star, that she’s pregnant with a baby girl.
The piece recounts Hannah’s early relationship with Derek and her experience dating someone with his magnitude of celebrity. She said she and the former New York Yankees shortstop are “looking to the future” in the wake of his 2014 retirement.
“We want our kids’ lives to be as ‘normal’ as possible. They’re going to be born into such an extraordinary situation. They’re going to have to be some strong little people. We don’t want them to be defined by their dad’s name — for them, we want him to just be ‘Dad,'” Hannah wrote.
“Derek and I will want our children to understand that the lives they’ve been given are so fortunate, in so many ways. We’ll want them to learn to help others, and to care for others, and to give back to the world,” she added.
“We’ll let them know that they are strong and smart, and that they can do anything they put their minds to. I hope they’ll be honest like their father. I hope they’ll be stubborn like me. I hope that they know what they want and won’t settle for less,” the star said.
Hannah and Derek married in St. Helena, Calif., in July after four years of dating. The model had said in the March 2016 issue of Maxim that she and the former MLB star connected over their shared values, not stardom.
“Trying to impress you with material things? I think that’s lame,” she told the magazine. “I wanted someone whose family is a big, important part of their life.”
Hannah is known for her modeling work with Sports Illustrated, appearing on the cover of the magazine’s 2015 swimsuit issue. The Yankees will retire Derek’s jersey number — 2 — during a ceremony May 14 in Monument Park.
