While he has had some tremendous sporting success in his career including a Rugby World Cup win, Sonny Bill has described the birth of his child as “the proudest moment of my life”.
His wife Alana Raffie gave birth to the pair’s daughter in Auckland this morning and although Sonny wasn’t with her, he is overjoyed by his daughter’s arrival.
Sonny shared the news of their little girl’s birth to his 403,000 twitter followers including an adorable snap of her tiny feet and toes.
The All Blacks are currently in Cardiff, Wales, but Sonny missed the training session this morning to be there (remotely) for his wife during the birth.
“We are delighted that Sonny and his wife Alana have had a baby girl this morning, so he was following that event,” All Blacks assistant coach Ian Foster said.
“Sonny missed training simply because he was monitoring the progress of his wife, who did an outstanding job by all accounts this morning. He was following it closely, so I’m assuming by some sort of telecommunications technique.”
The couple, who married secretly in August last year, are yet to announce the name of their first child, but an insider tells us they want a strong Muslim name.
“Alana likes Armani, which means ‘yours faithfully’, but Sonny prefers Eman which means ‘safe’, so they’ll probably go with that because he generally calls the shots.”
Before leaving with the All Blacks on their international tour, Sonny and Alana had decided he would stay in Europe rather than fly back home for the birth.