Twins on the Way for Shaun T and Husband Scott: 'Our Journey Has Been Emotionally Draining'

Shaun T is bringing new meaning to the term “dad bod!”

The celebrity fitness expert and his husband Scott Blokker are expecting twins via surrogate, he confirms to PEOPLE, sharing an announcement on social media featuring a poem with flash cards to spill the beans to his followers.

“Some things come easy, something take time,” the cards began. “Struggles can be real, but with them you’ll find. Things happen for a reason. Sometimes you never know why. But never give up and remember it’s OK to cry. 5 years of challenges, 5 years of wait. Ups, downs in emotion, painful blows we’d take. But we learned to stay the course, hope and prayer wins. And we’re happy to finally announce…. we’re having twins!”

The final reveal included the couple next to a pregnant surrogate.

“I wanted to tell people a long time ago because I like to live in the emotion of the excitement, but because our journey has been so long, hard and emotionally draining, Scott wanted to wait to protect me from the possibility of another let down,” he explains to PEOPLE of the events leading up to the announcement.

“I decided that I wouldn’t push the issue and wait for Scott to decide when it was time for us,” Shaun T adds. “So he came home one day and said, ‘I think I’m ready to tell our fans.’ I was super excited and relieved. We love simple but effective and emotional announcements, and so a poem with flash cards was the perfect plan.”

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The couple celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary on Thursday — and when it comes to their children on the way, Shaun T says another date this year was extremely special.

“We found out on my birthday, May 2,” he tells PEOPLE. “I knew we would get a result, but because we have been on the roller coaster before, I just said to myself, ‘It’s gonna be a great day or a greater day.’ We were on the tennis court too!”

“We knew the pregnancy results would be coming mid-morning, so we wanted to just try to pretend like it was any other normal day, since we had been through this day 11 times before,” recalls Shaun T, 39. “We got a text in the middle of our practice, called our surrogate and were told the beyond-incredible news.”

The fitness trainer and author of T Is for Transformation tells PEOPLE that he and Blokker were so excited to tell their fans — whom they knew would be “ecstatic” about the news.

“We were flying home from a work trip talking about when and how we would announce it,” says Shaun T, noting that the couple’s surrogate will be 28 weeks pregnant on Monday.

“We wanted to keep it simple [and] fun but also talk about how struggle is real, and if you keep your focus and never give up, your dreams will come true,” he insists. “Our journey to have a family is the essence of that.”