NFL star Antonio Cromartie and his wife have welcomed another baby, making it his 14th child – and the third since he underwent a vasectomy.
The former New York Jets player, 33, openly discussed getting his tubes cut in 2013, after fathering 11 children, including three with his current wife Terricka.
But just two years later, in 2015, fans were left stunned when the couple announced they were expecting twins. They insisted they did not plan on it happening again.
And yet, earlier this year Terricka announced she is expecting once more.
Jhett Paxton was born August 30 and weighed in at eight pounds two ounces.
As the family celebrated adding another to their roster, many fans were left with a burning question: how on earth was it possible?
Here, urologist Dr Jamin Brahmbhatt from Orlando Health explains…
His own team: The corner back is no stranger to being a father as he and Terricka share a daughter Jurzie, 5, and son Jagger, 3, (bottom right) but he also has eight other children from previous relationships
Terricka Cromartie, the wife of football star Antonio Cromartie, posted a photo on her Instagram account confirming the pregnancy earlier this year
Cromartie and his wife (pictured while pregnant with her husband in February 2016 during New York Fashion Week) welcomed twins on Mother’s Day of last year – despite the NFL star undergoing a vasectomy
First, Dr Brahmbhatt emphasizes, there is always the possibility of reversing the vasectomy – simply reconnecting the tubes.
But in many cases, the tubes naturally reformed a connection. While the failure rate is uncommon (about 1 in 2,000 cases), he says, it is not unexpected.
‘Sometimes, it just doesn’t work,’ Dr Brahmbhatt explains.
‘When we do vasectomies we always tell the patients that the tubes may just reconnect.
‘It’s not something you can really control; it’s about how your body heals internally.
‘We do everything to ensure the tubes don’t come back together.
‘But some things are out of our hands.’
Dr Brahmbhatt says he usually cites a failure rate of about 1 in 2,000.
He describes the procedure as splitting a piece of spaghetti. Sometimes they invert the ends, or burn the tips or put on clips.
‘We do everything we can to avoid failure, but some things are just luck of the draw,’ he admits.
‘It’s not 100 percent, but if you look at all of the options, it’s one of the best forms of birth control.’
If a patient’s partner does become pregnant, there are a number of options Dr Brahmbhatt pursues to determine what happened.
First, he will discuss the option of paternity testing with the patient.
Second, he will perform a semen analysis. If they detect even one sperm, that’s enough.
Despite Cromartie’s booming family (he already has enough kids for his own football team, plus two for the bench), Dr Brahmbhatt emphasizes that the issue of procreating after a vasectomy has nothing to do with fertility.
‘You only need that one lucky – or unlucky – sperm to make it happen!’
Though widely considered the most reliable and cost-effective form of birth control, remain unpopular.
Only about one in 10 eligible men in the U.S. get the operation, according to figures released by the United Nations in 2015.
Conversely, the rate is almost double that in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Vasectomies are minimally-invasive procedures, which take about 15 minutes and involve very little recovery time.
That said, many will feel somewhat tender for a couple of days, and all surgeries carry some level of risk.
The procedure involves severing, then sealing off, a tube called the vas deferens, which carries sperm from the testes to the penis.
This prevents sperm from reaching the seminal fluid (semen), which is ejaculated from the penis during sex.
There will be no sperm in the semen, so a woman’s egg can’t be fertilized – and the procedure has a 99.9 per cent success rate.
During a conventional vasectomy, the skin of the scrotum is numbed with local anesthetic.
The doctor makes two small cuts, about 1cm long, on each side of the scrotum.
The incisions allow the surgeon to access the vas deferens, or sperm-carrying tubes.
Each tube is cut and a small section removed.
The ends of the tubes are then closed, either by tying them or sealing them using diathermy (an instrument that heats to a very high temperature).
Men will not feel any pain, although it may feel slightly uncomfortable.
The incisions are stitched, usually using dissolvable stitches, which will disappear naturally within about a week.
After a vasectomy, a man’s hormones remain normal, and there is no noticeable difference in his ejaculate volume, since sperm make up only a tiny part of the semen.
Because the sperm cannot come out after the vas deferens is cut, like other dead body cells, the sperm disintegrate and are reabsorbed by the body.
Cromartie already had four children with Terricka, while he has another eight children from five other women.
Terricka has one child from a previous marriage.
‘It was the most amazing yet rewarding gift to give birth on Mother’s Day,’ Terricka said of delivering their twins in 2016. ‘This is a storybook fairy-tale for Antonio and I.’
She later posted a picture of one of the twins with the caption: ‘You are Beautiful J’adore in every single way jadorenayv.’
‘All my children are blessings’: Terrika told Us Weekly. The expanding family were pictured at an Annual Cartoon Network Hall of Game Awards in 2012
Terricka posted a picture of one of the twins with the caption: ‘You are Beautiful J’adore in every single way jadorenayv’
Terricka, who starred in the E! series Candy Girls, first became aware she was pregnant when she was admitted to the hospital with what she thought was bad cramps.
Instead she would learn she was pregnant with not one, but two babies.
The mother-of-four told Us Weekly: ‘I really thought I was dreaming, even after, I was just in total disbelief.’
Terricka and her football pro husband are also parents to daughter Jurzie, five; and son Jagger, three.
She also has a daughter from a previous relationship.
The corner back had eight other children from previous relationships before he married Terricka in 2008.
After the twins’ birth, Cromartie, who has faced criticism over the number of children he has fathered, tweeted that his ‘kids aren’t numbers’.
Terricka told Us Weekly she thought about hiding her pregnancy because she wanted the twins to be more than a number.
‘To be honest, I’ve gone back and forth about if I wanted to share the news or not,’ she said.
‘All my children are blessings and all of Antonio’s children are blessings, for that matter. It was made to seem that my children weren’t a blessing because they were categorized by a number, and for that reason and that reason alone, I hid both of my [first two] pregnancies with my husband, just so I could enjoy them with those who were really happy for me.’
Last year, it was reported that Cromartie pays an estimated $336,000 a year in child support, according to the New York Post.
He reportedly pays over $3,500 a month in child support per child except for the two with Terricka and also to the mother of oldest son Alonzo.
The oldest boy lived with the football star’s mother hence the exception, however, according to the New York Post the boy’s mom is fighting for support and custody.
The couple are reportedly now working on a book about blended families, as well as a new reality show.
Antonio starred in the reality show Hard Knocks and was once asked about his children and fans accused him of struggling to know their names.
After finding out the news, but still keeping the pregnancy a secret – Terricka wrote this telling caption on Instagram. Also pictured is Terricka’s daughter from a previous relationship
Terricka told Us Weekly she thought about hiding her 2016 pregnancy because she wanted the twins to be more than a number