Why I Kept My Pregnancy a Secret

I am pregnant. 5 months pregnant to be exact. It still feels crazy to share that with everyone. Last Wednesday I made the announcement that took me months to prepare. For some it was not a shock at all. My DMs were full of “I KNEW it” messages from Mamas. If you live in my neighborhood, you have probably seen me on my daily walks. Some of you even stopped the car to wave and congratulate me. When I first found out, I never intended to hold out for this long. With ObieQ I announced after the usual 12 weeks. Sharing my cute little bump on Easter weekend with my husband standing by my side. However, this pregnancy has been different from the beginning. Not only have I felt different, the world is different, like REALLY different. So, I walked around with our little “secret” keeping it from social media and even some people close to us. This blog is to share the why. Why did it take me so damn long to announce this pregnancy!

This time has not been easy.

From the first doctor appointment this pregnancy has kept me on my toes. At 9 weeks I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. This completely caught me off guard. In my opinion I am of average weight for my height, I kept a pretty healthy diet, I had a barre membership and even went to my share of classes. How could this be happening to me. Immediately I was assigned a team of doctors to help me as well as being put on daily insulin. There is a future blog post dedicated to gestational diabetes but in short let me tell you, it sucks.

In addition to the physical changes I was experiencing there was my mental health. We found out I was pregnant on the exact day shelter in place was mandated. Here we were, facing a pandemic and I was part of the “vulnerable community.” In a normal situation my anxiety would have been in high gear but I knew I had to remain calm for the health of this new baby inside of me. If that wasn’t enough, add on the civic unrest. During this time there was looting in our neighborhood and all of our local grocery stores shut down. This caused a panic in my husband. Something kicked in and he had the fear of not being able to access food for our family. It was already hard processing everything but with being pregnant, it felt like emotions hit me like a truck. I was crying at night and waking up doing the same.

Our family did not know

Can I tell you the worst part of being in isolation. Being away from my Mama. I was pregnant and did not want to tell my Mama via text. I wanted to lay on her shoulder. Tell her everything going on. I wanted my Daddy to make me food and fuss over me. They live only 30mins away. There is no reason why this shouldn’t happen. Well enter words like self quarantine, shelter in place and COVID. Because of this, all of the usual family gatherings were cancelled. I announced to our parents via TikTok. It doesn’t get more 2020 than than! We saw Obie’s aunts for the first time to announce to them only a week ago. I kept trying to wait until we were moved into a phase that allowed us to share with our family in person. Months went by and I saw how slowly things were changing. We finally resorted to calls and texts. I didn’t want anyone to find out via social media and I (almost) made that happen.

Anxiety of a public profile

By social influencer standards, I am considered a “nano influencer”. I have below 10k and an extremely local presence. So it shouldn’t be a big deal to share news on my account. However what it isn’t so apparent when you look at my numbers is the community we have created. I have many Mamas that I interact with online daily that I have never met in real life. Comments are 98% always positive but there are the 2% of comments or DMs that get real comfortable and are not always positive. I was feeling too vulnerable to deal with that 2%.  My mood varied so much in the beginning it was an equal chance I could cry or clap back. I didn’t want either one to happen. So I waited until my confidence caught up. Once I shared, we received so much love that the negative comments just rolled off of my back. 

If I had to do it all over I would have done it the exact same way. MY WAY. I did it on my terms. I used a photo taken by a dear friend. Right on the Southside where we are raising our family. This pregnancy has taught me so much about myself already and I am excited to share. Going forward I am going to share more about our fertility journey, my diagnosis of gestational diabetes, being pregnant in a pandemic, prepping ObieQ for his new role.. and more. 

This is where I need your help. Let me know what you would like to know. We are family so I am going to really be open. I also want to help other women that are in various places in their journey for little ones right now. Times like this when we are all in isolation, community is more important than ever.