Eagles long snapper Rick Lovato and his wife struggled to have a child. Thanks to IVF, he’s here.

When Rick Lovato walked into the Eagles’ locker room on Oct. 11, he received a round of applause.

This is not how the long snapper is usually greeted by his teammates, but it was no ordinary day. A night earlier, his wife, Jordan, had given birth to their son, Freddie. They had been through a long journey, and the players were well aware of it.

So, they clapped and gave Lovato high fives as he walked across the room. A few hours later, as practice was wrapping up, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni called him over.

“We want to congratulate Rick on being a dad,” Sirianni said in front of the team. There was another round of applause, and Lovato broke down the huddle.

He almost started to cry. For two years, Rick and Jordan had been trying to start a family. The process had not been smooth. They’d encountered heartbreak and frustration, feelings familiar to the millions of people around the world who have struggled with infertility.

It felt like they were stuck. Jordan couldn’t conceive naturally, so the couple began intrauterine insemination, a procedure that injects sperm directly into the uterus to improve the chances of its reaching an egg.

In September 2023, Jordan learned that she was pregnant. Rick’s birthday was coming up, so she waited a few days to tell him. She made him a onesie with four words — “Daddy’s Biggest Little Fan” — on the front and tucked it into a gift bag. When he saw it, he gave her an emotional hug.

They immediately began to think about the future. Would it be a boy or a girl? What would they name the baby? How would they decorate the nursery? But five days later, all of those hypotheticals came to a halt.

During a routine ultrasound, the doctors found the embryo trapped in Jordan’s right fallopian tube — a known risk associated with IUI. The embryo would continue to grow but could not survive. Ectopic pregnancies — which is what Jordan had — are life-threatening. She had to undergo emergency surgery to remove the embryo.

Jordan and Rick were heartbroken. It was a cruel grieving process, mourning a child they had never held or looked in the eye. They would never know whether the baby would be a boy or a girl or which parent he or she would look like. There was no more possibility to get excited about. Only an abrupt goodbye.

“It was horrible,” Jordan said. “At any stage, when you lose a pregnancy, you’re losing a child. That’s just what it is.”

She felt like less of a woman. She wondered what was wrong with her body. Everyone else’s pregnancy seemed relatively easy. She couldn’t understand why hers was so hard.

The day after her surgery, Jordan opened her phone. She went on TikTok and posted a video of Rick pulling the onesie out of a gift bag.

“After a battle with infertility, we thought we were finally through the hard part,” she wrote. “I was finally able to have this moment with my husband.

“At six weeks, we found out it was an ectopic pregnancy and had to say goodbye to what we thought was our future.

“I don’t know what’s next for us, but I hope that our future children will know how much we fought to have them here.”

Jordan isn’t sure why she felt so compelled to share that moment. She wasn’t sure how people would react, either. But almost immediately, her inbox was flooded with messages. Women of all ages reached out with their stories of pregnancy loss and infertility. The stories were sad, of course, but they made her feel less alone. She realized that she was not an outlier.

From then on, the Lovatos decided that they would be open with their journey, regardless of how it turned out. After Jordan recovered from her surgery, they began in vitro fertilization, another treatment for infertility. She started injecting herself with gonadotropin medications that can increase egg production.

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Jordan underwent another surgery to retrieve them — her second surgery in the span of a few months. And she documented every uncomfortable step: the shots, the blood work, the pregnancy tests, and the emotions.

“There are more women who are struggling to get pregnant than we talk about,” Jordan said. “It seems sometimes like people just get pregnant. But that’s not really the case, and it hasn’t been the case for many years.

“I think [it’s not talked about] because it’s embarrassing. You’re not doing what you think you’re supposed to do. What you’re taught is that women are supposed to reproduce. And when your body’s not doing it, you’re like, ‘What the hell?’”

While Jordan found solace in her online community, Rick found solace at work. He talked to his teammates and coaches about what he was going through. He was surprised by how many were familiar with IVF and pregnancy loss or had even experienced it with their partners.

“I had a few coaches come up to me and say, ‘Hey, we’ve lost a child,’” Rick said. “Because they knew what had happened to us. We had told people we were pregnant within the first couple weeks during that ectopic pregnancy. Everyone knew that we were trying. And when we found out that we lost the baby, that really put us down.

“But more and more people kept coming up to me to say, ‘Hey, we’re right there with you. We’ve had this happen, or we know this person who this has happened to. You should talk to them.’

“Every other week, Nick [Sirianni] was like, ‘Hey, how’re you doing? How is the process going? We just want you to know that we’re here for you, no matter what.’ And that was really special. That our head coach cares that much about me and Jordan and our journey.”

Tight end Grant Calcaterra heard about Jordan’s IVF process through his wife, Sophie. He approached Rick earlier this year to let him know his story.

“I was like, ‘I wanted you to know, I’m an IVF baby,’” Calcaterra said. “And I know it’s real difficult. So good for you guys.”

He added: “It kind of feels like a rare thing. And it’s really challenging. My parents have talked about how challenging it was. So, I felt obligated to say something, you know?”

In November 2023, for the My Cause My Cleats program, Rick chose to support the Adalyn Rose Foundation, which helps families grieving the loss of a child, and Baby Quest, which provides grants to families who can’t afford processes such as IVF. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a single cycle of IVF can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000.

The future of the procedure is unknown at this point. In September, a few weeks before Freddie was born, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would give women nationwide the right to access IVF treatments. During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump mentioned that the federal government should fund IVF, but there is a right-wing faction of his party — conservative Christians — that is fighting to restrict access to the procedure.

It’s something the Lovatos have thought about.

“It’s scary that that’s even an option,” Rick said. “Because it’s changed our lives. And it’s scary to think about, if it did go away, how many people’s lives would be affected. We don’t know if we can have another child naturally, and we want more than one child. So that’s definitely a thought of ours, that we’re scared about that. But we’re hoping it’s still an option.”

Jordan became pregnant, again, in January. It was exciting, but she felt some trepidation. She knew what it was like to lose a child, and was scared of losing another one.

The IVF process was more painful and emotionally draining than IUI. She had to give herself shots every day for 13 weeks. They left bruises on her stomach and hips. There was no guarantee that any of this would work — which made the daily injections more difficult.

But the couple were willing to try whatever they could.

“You’re desperate,” Jordan said. “I think that’s the best word. You’re literally desperate. It showed me that I was ready to be a mother at that point, because I was like, ‘I will literally do anything for this baby.’”

At 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 10, she began to feel contractions. About 17 hours later, Freddie was born. He weighed 7 pounds and 8 ounces and looked like his father. Now, he’s showing more of Jordan’s features.

Rick sees these little changes more clearly because he doesn’t spend as much time with Freddie as Jordan does. The Eagles have had four road games since the baby arrived. It’s not easy to be away, especially after waiting so long for their first child, but Rick has found positivity in it.

“I love seeing the slight differences that Jordan may not see because she’s with him all day, every day,” he said. “I see him getting bigger. He’s starting to make eye contact, which is so, so cool. I’ve gotten a couple smiles out of him in the last week or so. He’s starting to change a little bit, and it’s amazing to watch.”

Added Jordan: “It’s really kind of crazy. It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that it’s half of the person that you love and half of you. We’re still in that honeymoon phase of just being so enamored with him.”

The sorrow the Lovatos experienced in 2023 is never far from their minds. It’s why Jordan has kept the onesie that she gave to Rick on his birthday, right before her ectopic pregnancy.

“I don’t know if I’ll use it,” she said. “I’m kind of superstitious. But I might just keep it as a memory. It’s part of our story. We wouldn’t have Freddie if it wasn’t for that baby.”