In an exclusive shoot and interview at their new Chelsea home, television favourites Ollie and Gareth Locke-Locke have told HELLO! magazine the gender of their unborn twins.
We can exclusively reveal they are expecting one boy and one girl via surrogate later this summer after three-and-a-half years of trying to have a baby. Gareth says: "As we get towards the finish line, it's become very much more real. It felt like our lives were on hold but now it feels like we're moving forward. The babies coming along has reinvigorated everything."
The couple first found out their surrogate, Bex Ward – who lives in Chester with her family - was pregnant during a skiing holiday in Courchevel. Unable to cope with his nerves while waiting to hear the results of a six-week scan, Gareth, 34, took to the slopes while Ollie, 36, was left 'absolutely terrified' back at the chalet. "I then got into a car and I was on my own going towards the slopes and I knew the phone was going to ring," Ollie recalls. "Bex rang and showed me two pictures of two scans and I burst into tears."
Gareth had a similar reaction: "I was on a chairlift and when we got to the top I thought 'Ollie has called me so many times. It must be good news'. And I spoke to him and, literally, I filled my ski goggles up with tears."
The couple came across Bex, the second surrogate they have used, when she contacted them on social media. Their first attempt ended in a miscarriage in November before she successfully conceived again earlier this year. Two other pregnancies with a different surrogate also ended in failure. "She had watched our journey on the show and offered to help as our story really resonated with her," Ollie says of Bex.
They have become so close to Bex that they now see her as part of their family and she and her two sons come to stay in London with Ollie and Gareth every couple of weeks. "She has done something monumentally important and caring and loving and selfless - there's no real way to explain it," Ollie says. "She has helped us bring a family into the world that are going to be so unbelievably loved and so wanted. This has made us a family unit and she's very much a part of that."
The couple's joy is even more pronounced given how long it has taken them to get to this point. "I think we've sort of been numb for the last couple of years," children’s author and actor Ollie admits. "When you get such huge disappointment every time, you forget what you're actually trying to achieve. And that's been heartbreaking; not being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and only seeing the disappointment."
Watch Ollie and Gareth's beautiful wedding video here...
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