Colton Underwood Says He 'Can't Wait' to Be a Coach in 'Life' and 'Sports' to His Future Child (Exclusive)

"Sports have done so much for me and I've taken so much away from the sport of football," the former Bachelor and NFL player tells PEOPLE

As Colton Underwood and his husband Jordan C. Brown prepare to become fathers, the former Bachelor has started to think about what dad life will look like.

“I can't wait to be their coach — in life, but also hopefully in a sport,” the 32-year-old former NFL player, who competed as Lovebird on The Masked Singer season 11, tells PEOPLE. “Sports have done so much for me and I've taken so much away from the sport of football. I credit my work ethic to it and my communication skills and all sorts of life lessons that you learn in a sport like that.”

Underwood and Brown, 40, plan to use a surrogate to welcome their first child and have been detailing their fertility journey on their Daddyhood podcast.

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Related: Colton Underwood Initially Turned Down Masked Singer Because He Wasn't 'in a Good Place' After Coming Out (Exclusive)

“The first steps for us was just understanding all of the fertility language, the legal language,” Underwood says. “Having an appreciation of what these incredible women — both the egg donors and the surrogates have to go through — was a starting point for us. You've seen recently what's happened in Alabama and the rules and laws around IVF. Being in California, we’re a little more protected."

"We wanted to do our homework and we wanted to feel good about the decisions that we were making because you have to make so many in this process. That's where we started.”

The Coming Out Colton star thinks Brown, whom he married in May 2023, will be an “incredible father.”

“I can't wait to watch Jordan become a dad,” Underwood says. “He's a great partner and husband. And I think that's the most exciting for me is the fact that I get to see somebody I love so much, love somebody else so much, too.”

Underwood says the process has bonded him and his husband “like we never imagined.”

“The beautiful thing about family building is it's so intentional,” he continues.

Underwood previously told PEOPLE that he and Brown began their path toward fatherhood two years ago by getting both of their sperm tested.

“I've had some fertility issues and struggles, and I don't think a lot of men openly talk about that," Underwood said in February. “I mean right away, my husband gets his results back for his sperm count and he had incredible, great numbers, and I got mine back and all my sperm was dead. And I think immediately I was just like, 'Oh, what does this mean? It means I'm sterile and can't have kids now.' And it was not a great feeling.”

Related: Colton Underwood Recounts Experience Meeting His Egg Donor over Zoom: 'It Was Like Extreme Tinder'

These results confused Underwood. "I was like, 'I'm healthy. I work out every day. I've got this,' ” he said. “And then my doctor gave me my results back and I had four sperm and three of them weren't moving and one of them was not looking great either, so I quite literally had no sperm.”

Underwood and Brown wanted to split the eggs from the egg donor and each make embryos, so Underwood carefully followed his doctor’s advice to increase his sperm count.

“My doctor did list the most common reasons why sperm count could be low and I was doing literally everything you could possibly do to kill your sperm, which was hot tub and sauna, baths,” the author of The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV said.

“Exercising more than four or five times a week actually has an adverse effect on sperm. Pelotoning, riding a cycle or a bike. And then I was taking synthetic testosterone. I was prescribed testosterone after my days in football and what my body went through. So I was quite literally doing everything you possibly could do to hurt your sperm count.”

The couple proceeded to have embryos made and frozen and now find themselves “in our final stages with our surrogate right now, making sure she is healthy and ready to go,” Underwood says. “It's so special to finally be getting to a moment where Jordan and I are getting ready to call our doctor and say, ‘Let's do this.’ “

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