Morgan and Bode Miller are expecting yet another baby! They shared their joy in a People magazine exclusive. The happy news comes three years after the tragic drowning death of their toddler daughter, Emmy.
They also shared that this would be their last child. "We're finally on our last pregnancy," Bode says. And Morgan agrees, adding, "We're at the finish line."
Bode and Morgan already have quite the brood. Just 18 months ago they welcomed twins Asher and Aksel. They are also the parents to Easton, 2, and Nash, 6. Bode is also dad to daughter Dace, 13, and son Nate, 8, from two different previous relationships. That makes this baby No. 6 for the couple, and they couldn't be more thrilled about it.
"After losing Emmy, we both felt like we wanted to try for a girl. You know, there's obviously no replacing kids," Bode said. "All of ours are so unique that it's always a surprise, but then we had the identical twin boys in 2019 and we were kind of like, 'Whoa, maybe, maybe that's the end for us.'"
But the couple says they knew they weren't completely done. "We constantly knew that we had more space in our hearts to give more love," Morgan said. "Kids require a lot of attention and a lot of love. We have a lot of attention and a lot of love to give, but we feel like this will be the last one for us to be able to put all of ourselves into. So that way, all of them still get a bunch of love and attention. And we're not stretching ourselves too thin."
For a lot of people, even one kid feels like a challenge! But clearly, this couple loves having a big family. Losing their daughter at just 19 months old likely made them appreciate what a gift parenthood is even more. They say that although time has helped ease their pain, the anguish of losing their daughter is never far off.
"It's not something you can ever get away from," Morgan said of the day her daughter died. It happened when she was having tea with a neighbor and noticed Emmy had wandered off. Morgan found her in the shallow end of the pool, clinging to life. She died at the hospital the following day.
Bode and Morgan are all about keeping the memory of their daughter alive and honoring her however they can. Last month, during a photo shoot for People, the family released butterflies into the sky for Emmy.
"When you lose someone like that, when you lose a child, you really recognize how special that parent-child relationship is," Morgan said. "And not that we were ungrateful for what we had, our kids are absolutely incredible. But we just had so much more love to give and we had so much more love we wanted to give."
Morgan and Bode have also become advocates for water safety. "We work on it throughout the year, but definitely in summer months," Morgan says. "Even COVID, everyone was home and kids were home from school. Kids were home from daycare and drowning rates went up drastically."
She continued, "Drowning is still the number one cause of death for children under age 5. It's one of those things where when, after we lost Emmy, it became everyone rallied and it became this conversation. This is something that's completely preventable."
While the family agrees that after losing Emmy there is definitely some desire for a girl, Morgan says at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter to her. "We have a mixed bag of hoping for a boy or a girl," she said. "I'm probably the most in the middle where I'll just be happy for a baby."
