Brittney Griner and wife Cherelle are expecting their first child

Brittney Griner and her wife Cherelle are becoming parents for the first time.

The couple took to Instagram on 15 April to announce that they’re expecting their first child together. Their joint post included a snap of the basketball star and her wife holding hands, next to an ultrasound of their baby.

In the caption, Cherelle hinted at when she and her partner will welcome their child. “Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favourite human being,” she wrote, along with the hashtags: #BabyGrinerComingSoon #July2024.

Many fans and famous faces took to the comments to express how happy they are for the couple.

“Congrats!!!” actor Sophia Bush wrote, while Belgian basketball player Carpréaux Marjorie added: “Congrats ! Amazing ! Mini Griner homie.”

A third fan wrote: “So excited for you two.”

While Brittney and Cherelle first met while attending Baylor University, they didn’t officially tie the knot until 2019. Britney was drafted into the Women’s National Basketball Association in 2013, and she has been playing for the Phoenix Mercury ever since.

The couple’s baby news comes more than two years after Brittney was detained at an airport in Russia for allegedly carrying illegal cannabis oil in her luggage. In February 2022, she was taken into custody at the airport on charges of large-scale transportation of illegal narcotics, which carried a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

While Brittney pleaded guilty to the charges in July 2022, she said there was “no intent” for her to “break the law”. Before her trial, the White House offered to exchange Brittney and another detained American, Paul Whelan, for Viktor Bout, an infamous Russian arms dealer serving a federal prison sentence in the US for conspiring to sell arms to a Colombian rebel group deemed a terrorist organisation. In December 2022, US officials confirmed that Brittney had finally been released in a prisoner exchange for Bout.

Following Brittney’s release, Cherelle spoke to People about how relieved she was that her wife was coming home.

“I had thought about that moment a thousand times, and I thought I would be full of tears,” she told the publication in December 2022. “But I was overwhelmingly happy. It was the first time I was able to finally exhale, and I’m like: ‘Oh, thank God, this is such a great day.”

Cherelle also opened up about Brittney’s first night back home, noting that they “didn’t sleep at all” that evening.

“We just talked all night long and all morning. And it was so good to be able to do it without three weeks in between the conversation, because for 10 months we were passing letters,” she said. “It was great to have that dialogue back and forth.”