Brittney Griner is expecting her first child with her wife Cherelle

Announcing their impending first child on Instagram on Saturday, WNBA player Brittney Griner and her spouse Cherelle announced their news.

The hashtags “#BabyGrinerComingSoon” and “#July2024” were added to a photo of them holding hands over an ultrasound of the child, along with the message, “Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being.”

Ahead of the 2024 WNBA season, earlier this month, Griner, 33, re-signed with the Phoenix Mercury.

She was wrongfully detained in 2022 and spent approximately 300 days in detention in Russia.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist was detained at a Moscow airport in February of that year when police discovered cannabis oil in her luggage. She had been an off-season player for a Russian women’s basketball club for years.

She testified that she had unintentionally packed the cannabis oil, yet she was nonetheless given a nine-year prison sentence for smuggling drugs.

when discussions and a prisoner swap involving Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, Griner was freed in December 2022 when the US State Department determined that she had been unfairly incarcerated.

Her detention brought attention to the pay ceilings that WNBA players in the US face, which has forced athletes to travel abroad in order to increase their pay during the off-season.

In 2023, Griner led the league in field goal percentage (56.0%) and blocked percentage (1.6) while averaging 17.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 2.2 assists. On the WNBA’s all-time blocks list, she is ranked third.

Griner, who will start her eleventh season this year, is a 2014 WNBA champion and a nine-time All-Star.