Pete Buttigieg announces he and husband will be parents

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced on Tuesday that he and his husband are expectant parents.

“For some time, Chasten and I have wanted to grow our family,” Buttigieg, the first openly gay Cabinet secretary, wrote on Twitter. “We’re overjoyed to share that we’ve become parents! 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.”

No details were available about their avenue to parenthood, but the Buttigiegs have been open about their difficulties trying to adopt a child as a married couple. In a July profile of Chasten Buttigieg, The Washington Post reported that the two had been trying to do so for more than a year, even going so far as “on multiple occasions, to shop for baby gear and discuss names,” but to no avail.

“It’s a really weird cycle of anger and frustration and hope,” he told the paper. “You think it’s finally happening and you get so excited, and then it’s gone.”

Pete Buttigieg has had a rapid rise in Democratic politics, going from the mayor of South Bend, Ind., to a treasured role in a presidential administration in just a few years’ time. In between, he made an unsuccessful bid to become chair of the Democratic National Committee and ran for president.

But he has proved himself to be a deft communicator of Democratic messaging, and the White House has regularly employed him on TV and other media outlets as a leading member of Biden’s so-called Jobs Cabinet.

Buttigieg has previously said that growing up he drew inspiration from the life of James Hormel — the first openly gay U.S. ambassador, who died last week at the age of 88 — about what it meant to be a gay person in American politics and public life.

“I can remember watching the news,” Buttigieg said of Hormel’s nomination, which was denied a Senate floor vote by social conservatives and instead received a recess appointment by President Bill Clinton. “And I learned something about some of the limits that exist in this country when it comes to who is allowed to belong. But just as important, I saw how those limits could be challenged.”