Carly Patterson Expecting First Child

"Our sweet little babe," 2004 Summer Olympics champion gymnast Carly Patterson tweeted Wednesday, holding up ultrasound photos in the snap she shared

Photo: Carly Patterson/Twitter

Carly Patterson is graduating from the balance beam to the baby belly!

The 2004 Summer Olympics champ and her husband Mark Caldwell are expecting their first child together, she shared this week.

“Those closest to us know we have struggled to get pregnant for quite some time and were wondering if this would ever happen for us,” Patterson, 29, captioned an Instagram photo collage of the couple posing on the beach. “Thankfully, God has answered our prayers and Baby Caldwell is due October 2017!”

“Mark and I could not be more overjoyed for our little miracle and we cannot wait to start this journey of parenthood!” Patterson continued. ” ‘For this child I have prayed and the Lord has granted the desires of my heart’ 1 Samuel 1:27.”

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On Wednesday, the retired gymnast leveraged social media once again to share a car selfie of the couple, in which she and Caldwell are all smiles as she holds up a series of ultrasound photos.

“Our sweet little babe❤️👶🏻❤️,” she captioned the Instagram post, adding that she is 15 weeks along.

Caldwell and Patterson were married in November 2012, with the bride telling PEOPLE exclusively, “This might sound cliché, but after two weeks of dating Mark, I knew he was a completely different from any other guy I’ve ever met.”

She added of her management-consultant husband, “I feel so lucky and fortunate that I get to spend forever with my best friend and the love of my life.”

Patterson — who took home the All-around gold, Team silver, and Balance Beam silver medals in the Athens games — notably skipped the Olympics last year due to fear of contracting the Zika virus while the couple were trying to conceive.

“I went back and forth with my husband and tried to figure out what to do,” she told PEOPLE in July — when the couple had been trying to conceive for over a year already.

“I decided not to go several months back,” Patterson added at the time. “We knew it was causing microcephaly and miscarriages and to have your doctor say don’t go, well that’s scary and that’s something I took seriously right away.”