And Then There Were Four: The “Announcement”
At the time of writing this I am 30½ weeks, however, by the time you read this I’ll officially be a mother of two *grabs a kleenex*
In case you’re wondering, “How’d I miss this?!” don’t worry… you didn’t miss anything. I didn’t do any public sharing on social media… not unless you count my IG “close friends”, which is really just one big group chat. Instead I did the most non-influencer thing ever — I kept it real close & real quiet.
Just a quick disclaimer — at the time of my originally going quiet on IG I didn’t even know I was expecting. I was recovering from ME2023 + in the throes of major changes at my corporate 9 to 5. So in case you’re now thinking, “Oh that’s why we didn’t see her as much!” the answer is "not really". My pregnancy maybe made a 15% difference in how I showed up in the second half of 2023.
Back to my non announcement…
There are things, that over the years, I’ve learned are too precious — too sacred — to me to let the internet in. I struggled with sharing my house buying journey, for example, however I think I was able to find a way to do that (at that time) that I could feel good about. My pregnancy, on the other hand, I knew there was no “sweet spot” for sharing; so instead, I spent months watching dozens of other influencers announce their pregnancies back to back to back to back — there was a lot of baby making in 2023 y’all! — while I silently giggled to myself about my social media secret.
I had many reasons for wanting to keep this close with these being my top 3 —
(1) Not all pieces of me are for public consumption — this has always been who I am, which is why, for example, I’ve never shared my family, aspects of my job, or some of the other stuff that are “expected” of an influencer. As I said, some things are just too sacred & too personal, and I need them to just be mine.
(2) The internet isn’t the safest place & people don’t always wish you well. I’ve experienced harassment as an extension of my online presence, and to be honest, that’s trauma I’m still recovering from. That’s a more extreme scenario though. Zooming out, I believe in energies, and I saw very little value add to inviting hundreds, potentially thousands, of strangers into such an intimate part of my life. I don’t know their intentions & I didn’t wanna expose myself or my family to that kind of unknown. For what? I remember when I first shared in my “close friends”, shortly after, someone who I hadn’t told congratulated me. I don’t doubt that their intentions were good. I don’t doubt that the intentions of the person who told them were good. However intentions ≠ impact, and the impact was a breach of trust. So I shut down the close friends. Seeing as to how I can’t control how information spreads in these internet streets… well like I said… no value add.
(3) I could not process my pregnancy while also sharing it especially since this was all very new terrain for me. When I had mini no. 1, I had little to no social media presence. I don’t think people even found out I was pregnant until after my baby shower. Furthermore, I had maybe a couple hundred followers, most of whom were people I personally knew from school or work. Fast forward, and everything is being shared by everyone, every second of everyday because apparently that’s the new norm *she said sarcastically* and I have over 20K followers. As challenging as this pregnancy was, I needed to exert some kind of control in this journey, without worrying about engagement & privacy & blah blah blah.
Friends & peers alike thought I should share & invite my community in, however, ultimately I’m glad I did things exactly the way I did em. I eventually decided to restart my “close friends”, with (I think) a more discreet group of folks, and that was more than enough for me. My sharing now was never part of any long game, and was actually, at the encouragement of my therapist. In a recent session — in preparation for the baby — we discussed how this pregnancy has made me feel, all of the changes & differences, etc. and because we were also talking about how I miss writing, she suggested I document this pregnancy. Maybe I share it. Maybe I don’t. Either way, I get it all out of my head.
In the next few blog posts of this series — I don’t have an end goal… just vibes — I’ll be sharing my experience because in addition to what my therapist & I discussed, I received quite a few questions in my “close friends” and if I can be a helpful resource… well I do see the value in that.
I am actually looking forward to sharing some of my experience — some! — because I look forward to putting words to so much of what’s lived in my head for the past half year or so… words that can maybe help someone else on a similar journey or someone planning ahead. Too often, we hear skewed pregnancy stories, especially from the lens of a black woman, and while I know my stories will hardly be unique, I do hope they’ll be useful. Top of mind, I’ll likely get into the differences between my two pregnancies, all of the unexpected & unknowns that accompanies my “geriatric” pregnancy, how we prepared to become a family a four, faqs from my “close friends”, and of course, updates around the house & even a lil bit of shopping.
