Mets star Jacob deGrom has lots of reasons to celebrate this Father’s Day. Not only is it his first time celebrating the holiday with newborn son Jaxon, it’s also his own birthday.
“I was born on a Father’s Day, and my first Father’s Day is my birthday. I don’t really want [presents]. I am just happy to have my family up here with me,” the Florida native tells The Post. “I am happy to be a father. It really puts things in perspective . . . what is important and what is not.”
Especially after the health scare on April 12, just a day after deGrom’s wife, Stacey, gave birth to Jaxon, when the baby stopped breathing in his sleep.
“My wife’s sister was holding him. She is a respiratory therapist, and she saw that he was starting to turn blue. We checked his vitals and everything was fine. That night he did it again,” deGrom recalls. “The scariest thing is we saw him turn — they call it dusky, but he turned blue. You’d look at him and say something is not right.”
Jaxon continued to have what the doctors deemed apnea, so they checked him into the neonatal intensive-care unit, where the newborn was hooked up to machines and had blood drawn.
“You never want to see your kid like that. The doctor said [they] go searching for things but don’t want to find anything. It was rough. We were fortunate everything turned out fine, but those couple of days weren’t fun,” deGrom said.
“But I guess it was a matter of him growing out of it. When he stopped having the episodes, Stacey and I settled down a bit and knew everything was going to be all right.”
When the deGroms were finally able to bring Jaxon home a few days later, they didn’t sleep at all that first night.
“I was just listening to him the whole time,” deGrom tells The Post. “I laid in bed, and I could hear him breathing.” Thankfully, he adds, Jaxon “is actually a pretty noisy sleeper.”
He has nothing but praise for Stacey, his wife of a year and a half.
“She is doing great. And she’s been great through this whole thing. The lifestyle we have, with all of the traveling, is never easy. Jaxon has been on a few flights [already].”
The Mets pitcher says having a kid around has already made his work-life balance better.
“You have a rough outing, and you go home and you’ve got a baby that you’re happy to see,” he explains. “It’s easier when you have the hard times on the field.”
At just 9 weeks old, Jaxon has already been to Citi Field a few times — and his proud dad notes he is now a champion sleeper.
“He sleeps almost all night,” deGrom says. “If you grab his hands, he pulls himself up and tries to sit up. But the coolest thing is the smile. When you can get him to smile, it’s pretty awesome.
“We have a great little son.”
The athlete wants to be the kind of dad to Jaxon that his own father was to him.
“Growing up, I just remember him being there for whatever we needed,” deGrom says. “That’s what I am going to try to do.”
But there’s one trait he hopes his own son doesn’t emulate: the famous flowing deGrom tresses. Right now Jaxon is pretty follicularly challenged, with just a bit of fuzz up top.
And Dad likes it that way: “I hope he keeps it short.”
Matt Harvey says he’s not jealous of DeGrom’s luscious locks: