Friends star Courteney Cox Arquette, whose television character has struggled to have a child and who in real life has suffered miscarriages, is expecting her first child.

Arquette, 39, and her husband, actor David Arquette, 32, were married in 1999.

They have spoken publicly about their struggles to have children. The two recently said they were trying to conceive via in vitro fertilisation.

This year's final season of Friends follows the efforts of Arquette's character Monica and her husband Chandler as they try to adopt a child.