Breanna Stewart, wife Marta Xargay announce birth of baby girl Ruby Mae

The Seattle Storm's Breanna Stewart and her wife, retired Spanish pro hooper Marta Xargay, have added something new to their lengthy list of accomplishments. No, it's not Stewart's recently-earned Olympic gold medal — though she acquired both at nearly the same time.

Meet Ruby Mae Stewart Xargay, Breanna and Marta's newborn daughter. She came into the world via surrogate on Aug. 9, just a few days after Stewart won gold in Tokyo.

Journey to motherhood

The couple's journey to motherhood was documented by Togethxr, and shows how they wanted to defy expectations and blaze their own path to become parents on their own terms.

“I’ve always known I wanted to have a family, always wanted to be a younger mom,” Stewart, 26, said in the documentary. “It will not be easy, but why can’t I be the best player, a mom and have a child in the way we have done?”

Stewart and Xargay, who have been together since they met while playing in Russia in 2019, married just a few months ago in an informal ceremony. But the couple had decided they wanted to have a child last summer while Stewart was playing in the WNBA bubble. Stewart had frozen her eggs in 2019 while she was recovering from a torn ACL, so she and Xargay started interviewing surrogates.

They found one in Idaho, and the pregnancy took hold. However, they kept the news almost entirely to themselves. They told their parents and just a few of Stewart's teammates.

“We just wanted to share this with a very close circle,” Stewart told the New York Times last week. “Just to have this special time in life to ourselves for a while.”

Cutting it close

Timing wise, the pregnancy had been planned perfectly. The baby was due to arrive just after Stewart would return home from the Olympics. But at their 29-week checkup, they discovered that their baby girl was ahead of schedule by two weeks and looked like a 31-week old fetus. If she came early, Stewart would still be in Tokyo and would miss the birth.

Thankfully, Ruby Mae stayed inside until she was supposed to. The surrogate was induced on time and Ruby came into the world on Aug. 9, just a day after Stewart returned from Tokyo. The baby was placed on Xargay's bare chest just moments after being born, and Stewart cut the cord.

Near the end of the documentary, Stewart and Xargay showed off their family's most recent acquisitions: little Ruby Mae wearing Stewart's new Olympic gold medal.

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