Pete and Chasten Buttigieg Reveal Their Twins' Names with First Family Photo: 'Beyond Thankful'

Pete Buttigieg/Twitter

Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten Buttigieg just added two new additions to their family.

After revealing their joyous fatherhood news last month, the U.S. secretary of transportation, 39, posted the first black-and-white family photo of himself and Chasten, 32, each holding one of their swaddled newborn twins. The couple welcomed a boy and a girl, revealing their names in the post.

"Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we're becoming parents," they wrote in a joint statement. "We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family."

The growing family was immediately showered with congratulatory comments. "Congrats you two!! Beautiful!" wrote Sophia Bush. "Congrats you two!!!!!" Jesse Tyler Ferguson commented. "Congrats!!!!" added Charlie Carver and Bobby Berk. Emmy Rossum commented with a series of prayer hands and heart eye emojis.

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Pete previously announced that he and Chasten were parents on Twitter last month. "For some time, Chasten and I have wanted to grow our family. We're overjoyed to share that we've become parents!" he wrote.

"The process isn't done yet and we're thankful for the love, support, and respect for our privacy that has been offered to us," Pete added. "We can't wait to share more soon."

The former presidential candidate married Chasten, a middle school teacher, in June 2018, after they met on Hinge and began dating in 2015. They've since been open about their desire to start a family, telling PEOPLE they're "excited" about becoming parents. "We're just navigating those conversations," Chasten said in September 2020.

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"I'm so glad that we get this time and we're both to ourselves, into a bunch of projects, but we still get to have dinner together every night. And it's allowed us to have conversations, those necessary conversations, and now it's really overwhelming figuring out how and where and when, and how much — my God," he added. "But luckily, we have a lot of friends who've had families in very different ways. So, we've just been having great conversations with our friends about how they figured it out, and we'll go from there. We're just really excited and overwhelmed, I think."

"Very excited," Pete chimed in. "It's one thing when you're in the middle of a campaign and there's just no room for anything else. Not that there'll ever be an easy or simple time. I don't think there is for anybody, but it's time to take those steps."

Pete and Chasten rose to the national stage in April 2019, when the former announced his bid for president in the 2020 election, which would have made him the first openly gay politician to hold the office. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, ultimately lost the Democratic primary to President Joe Biden, who made Pete the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet post.

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Pete and Chasten Buttigieg

Even on the campaign trail, the couple had babies on the mind, telling PEOPLE that they were "really excited" to start a family. "I obviously threw a wrench in our short-term plans," Pete said in February 2020. "No matter what happens, I think the next chapter in our personal lives is going to be about kids."

"Chasten is just especially wired to be a great parent," he added. "We would hope to do [it] soon. One way or the other."