Mark Zuckerberg, wife Priscilla Chan expecting baby girl

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 31 (UPI) -- Mark Zuckerberg announced via Facebook Friday that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting a baby girl.

"This will be a new chapter in our lives," the Facebook founder wrote. "Now we'll focus on making the world a better place for our child and the next generation."

The 31-year-old entrepreneur said the couple had been trying to have a baby for a few years, suffering three miscarriages in the process.

"You feel so hopeful when you learn you're going to have a child," Zuckerberg wrote in his post. "You start imagining who they'll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they're gone. It's a lonely experience."

Zuckerberg continued to explain that miscarriages are something many don't talk about "because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you...so you struggle on your own." But he said that thanks to today's "connected world," those who experience similar issues can come together.

"It creates understanding and tolerance," he said, "and it gives us hope."

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the miscarriage rate among women who know they are pregnant is around 15-20 percent. After the first trimester, however, the risk of miscarriage is very low.

"Our good news is that our pregnancy is now far enough along that the risk of loss is very low and we are very hopeful," Zuckerberg said. "Cilla and our child are both healthy, I'm extremely excited to meet her, and our dog, Beast, has no idea what's coming."

Zuckerberg married Chan in 2012 in a surprise wedding a day after Facebook's stock market debut. The two met while he was a sophomore at Harvard University.