‘Bachelor’ Couple Sean and Catherine Lowe Expecting Third Child: ‘It Was a Complete Surprise’

Sean Lowe and Catherine Giudici Lowe are expecting their third child, with the couple already parents to sons Samuel, who turns 3 next month, and 1-year-old Isaiah.

Both Lowe and Giudici Lowe made the official announcement on their Instagram pages on Wednesday, sharing a family photo of themselves with their sons, Giudici Lowe cradling her baby bump in each shot.

Giudici Lowe’s caption was simply a group of family emojis and the hashtag #PartyofFive, while her husband wrote, “The first two have been pretty cool, so why not a third?”

“It was a complete surprise and I stared at the wall for a good 24 hours,” Giudici Lowe told PEOPLE of finding out she was pregnant. “I was like, ‘I just had one of these!’ “

“Isaiah was 11 months old when we found out,” she added. “It was a little overwhelming to think about but we wanted a big family. This is just the way it was supposed to happen. So we’re excited.”

The 33-year-old shared that it was her husband who confirmed the pregnancy, which has become sort of a family tradition.

“Every time we get pregnant, [Sean] tells me,” she said. “I leave the stick in the bathroom and he comes out with the stick. So every time that we’ve found out, he’s the one who is telling me. He had Isaiah in his arms and I was like, ‘Surely this is not going to happen.’ I did not think it was going to be true.”

Giudici Lowe previously shared that she wants a big family and is hoping for a daughter next.

“Originally when I met Sean, I wanted five [kids],” she told Us Weekly in May. “He’s like, ‘Whoa.’ I’m like, ‘OK, maybe four.’ … I want a girl naturally next and then [to] adopt a girl. Then you get sisters and brothers. I know it’s probably not going to happen, but that’s my ideal.”

The couple met during Lowe’s season of The Bachelor, during which he chose Giudici Lowe as the winner. The two got engaged during the season finale and married in January 2014 in a televised wedding special.

Now, they’re preparing to be parents of three young children, something Giudici Lowe admitted won’t be easy, though she predicts it will be well worth it.

“Obviously, it’s going to be overwhelming and exhausting but they get to be best friends forever,” she said. “We get to have these children who are going to be so close in age and get to grow up and have all these memories. Yeah, it’ll be hard for us but it’s just a chapter. It’s so fleeting.”

Photo Credit: Instagram / @catherinegiudici