Even though Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich aren’t parents quite yet, the professional hockey player already has fatherhood on his mind.

“I’ve thought about it more lately, like, ‘What does being a father look like?’” the 36-year-old told Us Weekly on the set of Hallmark’s Home & Family while promoting his “How Men Think” podcast with Gavin DeGraw. “You think about that when you enter a relationship, like, ‘What does being a husband look like?’ And now I think about [fatherhood]. Here comes a new life into the world, and I have a big responsibility to sculpt and shape this mind. It makes you look at yourself like, ‘Am I a good enough human? Have I worked to be a good resource for this new life?’”

This isn’t the first time that the athlete has brought up the fact that he and his wife, 31, want to have children. In fact, the pair decided to start the IVF process last summer. “Knowing she has endometriosis, it could potentially make things challenging in the future to conceive naturally. That was just a looking at the big picture and what we want as a family,” Brooks recently told People.

“The commitment that she made to us having a family is something I’ll never forget,” Brooks continued. “As a husband, I just go into full support mode. Whatever my wife needs, whatever I can do, I’m fighting the smallest portion of the fight with her. There are certain things in my wife’s life that I know she appreciates that help her feel calm and help her feel relaxed, so I double those efforts during that time just to show that I’m there with her and I support her.”

The happy couple tied the knot in 2017 — and have been quite open about their relationship. “I’m not a newlywed anymore, technically, so … I think the best part [of being married] is that you go through your ups and downs, but you always know that the ugly parts of you are your best parts,” the America’s Got Talent judge said earlier this year. “I don’t know, that sounds really deep. But … those parts of you are the parts that you get to share with the person [who will remain] next to you at all times.”

We wish Julianne and Brooks nothing but the best moving forward!