Brian Dowling and Arthur Gourounlian have confirmed they’re expecting their first child together.
The couple, who tied the knot at the lavish Powerscourt Hotel back in 2015, shared the heartwarming news on Instagram today.
Sharing a video of the moment they found out their surrogate was pregnant, Brian wrote: “It COMPLETELY FILLS OUR HEARTS @gourounlian to be able to reveal we are PREGNANT & due to our BEAUTIFUL bundle of joy later this year.”
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“We actually never thought this day would be a reality for us. We fully realize & understand how lucky & blessed we are for this to be happening,” he continued.
“For a lot of us out there & especially people from our community we have to fight harder & push harder for what others consider to be something that can be achieved easily.”
“Myself & Arthur have been keeping the BIGGEST secret the past few months but it’s put the BIGGEST SMILES in our HEARTS & on our FACES.”
“We can’t wait to meet you, hug you & LOVE YOU for the rest of our lives 💚 Baby Dowling Gourounlian is on the way people 🤰🏼👶🏻🌹.”
The couple discussed their plans to start a family on The Late Late Show Valentine’s Special earlier this year.
Brian told host Ryan Tubridy: “The baby train has left the station. We thought at this point we would have been blessed already. We’re on the surrogacy journey, but there are no regulations regarding this.”
“It just doesn’t affect people like us, it affects everyone in Ireland… children, parents and families. I think you shouldn’t tell people when they can or can’t have families so I’d like to think this year we will be blessed, but how do you know?”
Brian and Arthur have been open about their struggle to start a family in the past.
Back in 2020, Arthur told the Irish Mirror: “It is our dream to start a family. I wanted three kids and we started meetings in America.”
“We were looking at adoption but with Covid everything stopped. We are trying to start looking at adoption here in Ireland but honestly, it is heartbreaking how difficult it is.”
“First of all we are getting too old. Second of all, there are hardly any kids to adopt so we are struggling on that front too. It is breaking our hearts because I know that Brian and I would give the best life to these children.”
“We are exploring every area now… The reason I don’t want to go down the surrogacy route is that I don’t want to spend $150,000 because of my background as a refugee.”
“I simply cannot justify spending that kind of money. It doesn’t matter how much I earn in life, when I was growing up I didn’t have any money so for me to spend that amount of money on a kid, I physically feel sick,” the DWTS judge confessed.
“It may come to the point where it is our only option and Brian has told me I may have to swallow our pride and just go with it. But having children is something we want to do.”