Family 6 years ago Why I Hid Being Pregnant On Social Media For Over 5 Months
It definitely was not easy, but I somehow managed to hide my pregnancy on social media up until recently.
Because I know many of you are fellow bloggers or perhaps some of you are also pregnant, looking to get pregnant {or maybe you are just curious}, I thought I’d share a few tricks I had up my sleeve over the past few months. Thankfully, not a lot of you have pried about why Grant and I elected to keep our bump under wraps for the past 5 months. However, I felt kind of guilty doing so and I wanted to write a post about not only how but why we kept it a secret.
Let me start out by saying that I did not hide my pregnancy because I didn’t want to share this exciting news. I was bursting at the seams, both literally and figuratively, to shout that “we’re pregnant” from the roof tops. However, with scares of a previous miscarriage, superstition and other personal reasons we were faced with along the way, we wanted to keep this news private until recently. My miscarriage happened several years ago, very early on in an unplanned pregnancy. While I have {thankfully} healed from this experience, when we found out that we were pregnant this time, the entire experience just felt incredibly surreal. As someone who lives her life in a very public manner, I was legitimately worried that this crazy fortunate news would disappear, or that I would jinx it, if I announced too soon. I know it might sound weird, but I wanted to protect my growing baby from the outside world as much as possible. Maybe other Moms out there can understand what I mean.
Recently, my friend, Idalia, said something that encouraged me to announce. She said “Jacey, you are not going to raise your baby to be sheltered away from the outside world. You are going to raise the baby to be strong and capable to handle anything!” and she was 100% right. I also knew it was time because if something did, God forbid, happen, that I was far enough along that I would inevitably share my loss with you all. Either way, this experience was going to be shared, so I finally felt like it was the right time last week.
Hopefully I did a pretty decent job at keeping my bump under wraps. You may look at my Instagram feed or blog and see some signs, or perhaps you’re looking at a photo wondering “where is the baby bump?”
Here are a few ways I altered my posting habits and photography skills to adjust to my growing belly. My bump didn’t ‘bump’ until recently {about 3 weeks ago}, so the first several months were not too different – outside of battling nausea and emotional outbursts over my jeans not fitting.
Sit Down, Calm Down, Snap On
My old tricks of tilting the camera eventually weren’t working anymore so when in doubt, I sat down for a photo. If you scroll back you will spot a ton of sitting snaps on my feed. Any outfit that was clingy or too difficult to shoot standing up, I just sat down! This trick especially worked well with the 1 or 2 swimsuits I wore during the past 5 months.
Repurpose Content
Speaking of swimsuits, trying to cover up a baby bump during the midst of summer was quite a challenge as well. I was super strategic with repurposing content because I didn’t want my feed to feel dated, nor did I want you guys to remember certain photos that I’d already post. So, I found photos that I had not used from the same shoot/trip. For example, this swimsuit shot was taken back in January while we were in Mexico. I ended up posting a different photo from that exact day back in January so it allowed me to use this one just a few weeks ago to make it seem like it was taken recently.
Bag In Front of Bump
Only in the instance of hiding my bump would I ever put my bag above my baby {ha, bad joke}. But if you have a big bag to hold over your baby, use it as a prop!
Pre Shoot, Pre Shoot, Pre Shoot
One of the best pieces of advice I received from Idalia right when I found out I was pregnant was to pre-shoot the shit out of myself while I wasn’t showing. I was ex-hausted during my first trimester and between spells of nausea, napping, eating and feeling like a crazy person, Grant and I managed to shoot a ton of content before I started to show. This was honestly the last thing I wanted to do during the end of my first trimester. I argued that my readers would know it wasn’t in “real time” and that the content would not feel authentic. But at the end of the day, posting a “going out” photo on a Friday night when you are really just laying in bed feeling sick is better than nothing at all. I would keep my captions honest and truthful, just using a photo we had pre-shot. Here are two examples of where I used images we had pre-shot with more generic captions {while posting from bed at 6pm on a Friday night}. Take your time and pre-shoot photos no matter how badly you don’t want to do it – you will thank me later.
Hire A Pro
I typically shoot with Grant because it’s so much easier, but as we neared our “reveal” date I was growing frustrated with keeping things on the “hush” and my new tricks started to grow old. Luckily, I’ve worked with an amazing photographer, Felicia Lasala, for years and we scheduled a studio session to power through a few sponsored campaigns that I needed to shoot. If you are able to work with a professional photographer, they can offer really wonderful tips and tricks for posing and angles that really help angle the body.
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