Sean and Catherine Giudici Lowe's baby on the way will join big brothers Isaiah Hendrix, 13 months, and Samuel Thomas, who turns 3 next month

The Lowe household is expanding!

Catherine Giudici Lowe is pregnant with her and husband Sean Lowe‘s third child, the spouses confirm exclusively to PEOPLE.

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The baby on the way will join The Bachelor couple’s two sons: Isaiah Hendrix, 13 months, and Samuel Thomas, who turns 3 next month.

“It was a complete surprise and I stared at the wall for a good 24 hours,” Giudici Lowe, 33, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, adding that she was “so emotional” in finding out she is pregnant for the third time. “I was like, ‘I just had one of these!’ ”

“Isaiah was 11 months old when we found out,” she adds. “It was a little overwhelming to think about but we wanted a big family. This is just the way it was supposed to happen. So we’re excited.”

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Image zoom Sean Lowe, Catherine Giudici Lowe and sons Isaiah and Samuel Catherine Lowe/Instagram

Giudici Lowe also shares that she found out she was expecting when she “wasn’t feeling well” and Lowe, 35, asked if there was a chance she could be pregnant before giving her antibiotics.

“Every time we get pregnant, [Sean] tells me,” she reveals. “I leave the stick in the bathroom and he comes out with the stick. So every time that we’ve found out, he’s the one who is telling me.”

“He had Isaiah in his arms and I was like, ‘Surely this is not going to happen.’ I did not think it was going to be true,” the mom-to-be shares.

Though Giudici Lowe admits the couple was “stunned” to find out they’ll soon be a family of five, they’re excited to create even more “precious memories” with a bigger family.

“Obviously, it’s going to be overwhelming and exhausting but they get to be best friends forever,” the expectant mom tells PEOPLE. “We get to have these children who are going to be so close in age and get to grow up and have all these memories. Yeah, it’ll be hard for us but it’s just a chapter. It’s so fleeting.”

One member of the family who’s ready for the newest addition to the Lowe household? Oldest child Samuel.

“He’s very excited and kissing the baby good night and praying for the baby,” Giudici Lowe shares. “He knows what’s happening. He wants to see the baby — he’s trying to look down my shirt to see the baby!”

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Audiences watched the couple meet, fall in love and get engaged during Lowe’s season 17 of The Bachelor. They married in a fairytale wedding that aired live on TV in January 2014. On July 2, 2016, the duo welcomed Samuel, with his little brother Isaiah being born 22 months later.

Speaking with PEOPLE in August 2017, Lowe said that the possibility of baby No. 2 was “not off in the distance because Catherine wants a big family — she’s convinced she wants several more kids.”

“Sean and I have always been open about the fact that we want more children,” Giudici Lowe told PEOPLE the previous month. “I think our lifestyle right now has been not as expected from before. We were like, ‘Oh, we’ll totally knock them out and we’ll be so quick and get it over with,’ just because it’s a long time of being pregnant and having a newborn.”