Thomas Rhett has become a dad two times over in the last six months, and both were very different processes. Though waiting for adopted daughter Willa Gray to come home from Uganda was a long and at times painful process, the arrival of his new baby daughter, Ada James, came with a different intensity.

Rhett and wife Lauren welcomed Ada James on Aug. 12, and Rhett was right there every step of the way.

"It shocked me how involved he was with Ada because ever since I’ve known him in middle school, he has been the most dramatic, can’t-deal-with-anything-too-intense person," Lauren tells People. "He’s squeamish and he will tap out at the drop of a hat, but through those first 28 hours, he did not leave my side."

Rhett knows this about himself, so he planted himself firmly by her head for the birth at the beginning. He soon changed his tune, though.

"I promised myself I wasn’t going to watch," he explains. "And then I got a little glimpse from this mirror that was set up and I was like, 'Well, I’m invested now.'"

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Rhett was in awe of his wife’s pain tolerance, as she had decided on a natural birth.

"I don’t do pain," he says. "If there is a drug to be taken to not make pain happen, I’m on it."

Lauren took it in stride, enduring the pain for hours before finally taking the medication, much to Rhett’s relief.

"She was so strong-willed, but there came a point where we weren’t getting anywhere and it was so painful that she finally did." He added it was "the best moment of my life!"

The couple’s daughter Willa is warming up to having a baby in the house — a challenge for any toddler.

"I think it wrecked her when she realized it was a human instead of a baby doll," Lauren says, but she explains that she’s coming around. "She wants to lie down and take naps with Ada…Willa loves to hold my hand, and she started rubbing Ada’s hand like I do with her. I think she’s growing to love her more and more."

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