Ashley Cain is going to be a father again (Picture:REX)
Ashley Cain is to become a dad again two years after the death of his baby daughter in 2021.
The former footballer, 33, has revealed that the first thing he did when he found out was visit his daughter Azaylia’s grave to tell her she was going to be a big sister.
Azaylia died of cancer at just eight months old.
Ashley told The Sun, reportedly in tears: ‘The first thing that I did was go down to Azaylia’s resting place to talk to her about it.
‘I believe that was a huge part that has allowed me to feel positive about it. I feel like she was the main person that I needed to speak to and to get this thing off my chest.
‘After going to her resting place and speaking to her about it, I just had a feeling in my heart and in my soul that she was happy for me.’
Ashley’s daughter died in 2021 after she was diagnosed with cancer the previous year (Picture: mrashleycain/Instagram)
Azaylia was only 8 months old when she died (Picture: mrashleycain/Instagram)
The reality TV star said he thought Azaylia was happy she had a little brother, who is now someone else for her to watch over and protect.
Ashley has known he was going to become a dad again since July, when he was preparing to take on the Yukon 1000 – an endurance race in Canada – and he got a message from a friend he’d been dating at the time.
The unnamed woman, who he has known since he was 18 and has met up with on and off over the years, asked him to meet up with her and then told him she was pregnant.
Chatting about the future mother of his child, Ashley said she’s a ‘really nice person’ and ‘good to be around’.
It was very difficult to understand for Ashley, he admitted, after the heartbreak of losing his first child, but he explained how every one is a ‘blessing’.
Of course, entering the world of clinics was hard for Ashley, who hadn’t been in that environment since he lost little Azaylia to acute myeloid leukemia – but it was also ‘beautiful’ and the ex-footballer felt ready.
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He was keen to find out the gender of his baby, and didn’t know how he would ‘cope’ if they were a little girl, after what happened. Of course, he would still have been ‘over the moon’ and the ‘best daddy’ – even though it would be understandably painful.
But the star revealed he is expecting a little boy.
The star also revealed that the pregnancy hasn’t gone completely smoothly, because at 20-weeks the couple found out the baby has a potential heart defect.
Ashley explained how they couldn’t find the connection between one of the valves and the heart. He was worried he might lose another child.
Their son has to go for a scan as soon as he is born to make sure everything is okay. Ashley is saying his prayers.
In 2020 Ashley and aesthetic practitioner Safiyya Vorajee, 35, were heartbroken when Azaylia Diamond Cain was diagnosed with the rare cancer at eight weeks.
She died in the arms of her parents at their home in Nuneaton, Warks, in April 2021.
This comes a day after the sportsman slammed Ricky Gervais for making a joke about terminally ill children in his Netflix special.
The Office creator, 62, referred to children in hospital as ‘baldies’ and questioned why beneficiaries of charity Make-A-Wish Foundation didn’t ‘wish to get better.’
On his Instagram Stories, the footballer wrote: ‘I was actually a fan of Ricky Gervais but I had to turn off his stand-up the other day as I was watching it with family and there were multiple jokes about terminally ill children and especially kids with cancer.’
In a larger font, he wrote: ‘Some things are just not funny.’
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The first thing he did was visit Azaylia’s grave.