Hillary Scott's Husband Chris Tyrrell Steps Back from Lady Antebellum to Care for Their Twins
When Lady Antebellum hits the road starting this July for their Summer Plays on Tour, one familiar face will be absent — but for an important reason.
In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Hillary Scott reveals that husband Chris Tyrrell, the band’s drummer, will “be holding it down as Dad, hero” at home “for the time being” while she performs with bandmates Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley.
“We feel at complete peace with the decision,” says Scott, who welcomed identical twin girls Betsy Mack and Emory JoAnn on Jan. 29 and also shares 4½-year-old daughter Eisele Kaye with Tyrrell.
“We’re both equipping each other to do exactly what we’re supposed to be doing right now,” adds the 32-year-old singer. “We just came to that agreement together. It was one of the easiest decisions we’ve ever made and the peace that we’ve felt since we made it has just been continual proof of it being the right call.”
“It’ll hopefully be restful and efficient — I’m thinking about when we have writers out on the road to write for the next record,” she continues, admitting it will “be an adjustment” but she’s “hoping to enjoy” the experience. “I’ll be able to be fully present and focused and hopefully get a lot of fun writing done.”
Tyrrell, 31, tells PEOPLE he’s “looking forward to it. I’ve been a bandmate, employee, husband and dad, so I’m okay removing a hat.” He jokingly adds, “Besides, when you looked at whether the band could do without me or her, there wasn’t much question!”
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Scott explains that as working parents who are on the road at specific points, she and her husband knew they “had a window” to have more children.
“I remember telling my bandmates towards the end of that summer of ’16 — we were talking about making the record Heart Break,” she says. “And I just said, ‘I’m really committed to making and touring this album, but then we’re going to start trying again.’ ”
“We felt at peace with that timing of, ‘Make the record, tour the record, and then we want to be expanding our family,'” Scott continues. “Knowing all the while that when the tour started we would start trying, just because the slower times in what we do are fall and winter. So we started trying then, and it really — by the grace of God — was not a long process. I mean, it happened quick.”
RELATED VIDEO: Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott Welcomes Twin Daughters
After becoming pregnant with her twins following a miscarriage she suffered previously, the “Need You Now” singer recalls that she “slept a lot” and had “double the fatigue” of when she was pregnant before.
“I was sick in the beginning and it was always right around showtime so I had to take anti-nausea medicine that my doctor prescribed me, which thank the Lord for that stuff,” she jokes.
Adds Scott of her performances during the band’s 2017 You Look Good Tour to support Heart Break, “I didn’t know if I would’ve been able to make a handful of shows because there just were some close calls.”
RELATED: Hillary Scott Introduces Identical Twin Daughters Betsy Mack and Emory JoAnn
Self-admittedly “fiercely independent,” Scott tells PEOPLE one big lesson she has learned in being a mom of three is how to ask for help without feeling bad about it.
“We just needed a village, and I’ve had a postpartum doula since the girls were 2 weeks old. She’s been an absolute godsend, and then night nurses who, literally, it’s like they’ve become a part of our family,” she raves. “[I] just want to advocate for women who are embarking on motherhood, whether it be the first time or the second time and they get two and three at once…”
“To be able to feel equipped and to feel like they have that support,” says Scott. “Not just the emotional support of a text from a friend going, ‘You got this, mom,’ but the physical, ‘I’m in your house; I know I can’t help you nurse your baby but what can I do otherwise?’ That’s one thing that I feel is just this really unhealthy, unrealistic level of pressure we are put [under].”
For more about Hillary Scott’s new life as a mom of three, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
