Syd and Shea McGee are ready for their next big project: welcoming their third child!
"We have some big news to announce: We have baby number three on the way!" Shea, 35 tells PEOPLE exclusively.
The stars of Netflix's Dream Home Makeover opened up about their new addition in this week's cover story. "We're so excited. We are feeling all of the feelings," Shea says of their forthcoming family member, who is due in mid-July.
Shea and Syd both call the little one their "grand finale baby." They already share daughters Wren, 7, and Ivy 5.
"There's a five-year gap between our oldest two and this one," says the interior designer and Studio McGee co-founder with her husband of 12 years. "Last time I had a baby, I had another baby to take care of too. It was crazy." She's hoping this time around, she'll have some extra helping hands. "Now I'm feeling like our girls are really going to take on the responsibility of being helpers. They're really, really excited."
"Our youngest kisses Shea's belly every morning and says, 'Hi baby," adds Syd, 36.
The couple discovered the happy news in an unexpected way. "We were coming home from a trip and I wasn't feeling well at all and I told Syd, 'I just have this feeling. I don't know why, but I feel like I might be pregnant.'"
Syd remembers, "You said, 'My body's doing all the weird things it does when I'm pregnant,' and I was like, 'What?'"
They couldn't wait to confirm their hunch. "I made him stop at a convenience store on the way home from the airport to pick up a pregnancy test and then I found out that day."
While mom and dad knew they were expecting the week before Thanksgiving, they waited for another special occasion to inform their girls.
"We waited to tell them on Christmas," says Shea. "We wrapped up a little gift and it had a little book inside, and some baby toys, and they opened it, and they were like, 'What is this?' And I'm like, 'We're having a baby.' They didn't even say anything, their jaws just dropped."
When their daughters were able to fully grasp the news, she says, "They started screaming. It was really a fun Christmas morning."
The arrival of their third child will be very different from their first two, who were born while the college sweethearts turned business partners were building their Studio McGee empire.
Wren arrived just as Shea quit her job in public relations and took a leap of faith to start her own design firm out of the spare bedroom in their California starter home. Syd left a job that he'd been unhappy in just a couple of months after she was born, throwing the couple into a financial tailspin that would lead to several years of personal and professional hardship.
"I did not see that coming," Shea recalls. "It was very hard. I was already super emotional from just having a baby, and being a new mom, and not knowing what I was doing. I think I had assumed I would take a little break for a couple of months. But instead, I was like, 'Well, we've got to pay our mortgage,' and so I had to just dive headfirst back into it."
The next few years were some of the most challenging they'd experience as they burned through their savings trying to launch and sustain Studio McGee and eventually made the decision to sell their home and relocate to Utah, where they'd gone to college and where they knew the cost of living was more affordable.
WATCH THIS: Dream Home Makeover's Syd and Shea McGee Nearly Went Broke Before Finding Fame: 'There Wasn't a Backup Plan'
"Money problems can be enough to break two people, and throw a new baby into it . . . it was a hard time," Shea says. "I don't think that Syd and I ever looked at it like we weren't going to make it. But we were not happy."
Ivy arrived in 2015, a year after they'd made the move while they were still hustling to build what's now a massively successful brand. They'd found their first office: a run-down spot without heat. "We worked 16- or 17-hour days," Syd recalls. "We didn't say no to anything."
Now, the couple have a booming business, a huge social media following, a Target collaboration, and a successful Netflix series. Season one premiered in October and season two followed earlier this month. And while they can't yet confirm if there is a third season in the works, they're more than prepared to film while expecting.
"Hypothetically, yes, we would have to" film season three while Shea is pregnant. "I'm okay with it though," Syd jokes.
"Oh yeah, you're fine. You're not worried about how it's going to affect you," his wife replies.
He adds with a grin, "I think I'll look good on camera either way."
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