Nancy didn't share about her new baby until she was born. Here's why.

An interview about pregnancy, pivoting, and transparency with a dear friend

Hello, friends! Something a little different for you today! First, I’m coming to you on a Tuesday (!), after a Friday post (!) last week. (I usually publish on Thursdays!)

More importantly, I’m sharing an interview with a dear friend. Nancy Ray recently had her fifth baby, and when I found out midway through her pregnancy that she was not planning to share the news online until after the baby was born, I was intrigued, to say the least.

I asked her if we could record a conversation exploring her decision and how her perspective has changed over her last decade of having babies and sharing on the internet, and she graciously agreed. Our chat was an opportunity for reflection for me on my own almost-decade of sharing my pregnancies and family life with others, and I hope it might be the same for you — especially if you’re still in a season of adding to your family!

If you’d prefer to listen to our conversation, you can do that right here on Nancy’s podcast. Otherwise, I’ve edited it lightly below. It’s longer than our usual fare here on TCF, so you may need to click over to Substack to continue reading!

Emily: Well, hey, Nancy!

Nancy: Hey, Emily! I'm so excited. I think this is going to be such a fun format to have this conversation.

Emily: I'm excited to be chatting with you today, too. We’re here because when you had gotten pretty far into your pregnancy and told me you weren’t planning to tell the internet until baby was born — I mean, gobsmacked is probably too strong of a word, but not by much. I was surprised, but also intrigued: I love to think about kids and families and the internet and sharing and technology and so I was eager to have a conversation with you about your thought process this time around.

Nancy: I remember that moment because we were all sitting around the campfire, and I remember just cracking up at your and John's responses. Both of you just died laughing.

Emily: Yes!

Nancy: To be fair, I’ve taken a unique approach this time around. This is my fifth baby — I’ve shared all the other pregnancies online along the way — but so much has changed with technology and the internet and sharing and privacy and kids in the last decade. I don’t believe there’s a right and a wrong way to share, but this time it just felt right for me to keep this pregnancy close.

Sharing the news IRL

Emily: Yes, indeed. Let’s get into it! Let’s start here: while you kept this pregnancy mostly a surprise to the internet, you did tell people offline. Was that process the same as past pregnancies?

Nancy: Yes! All of our family and friends knew. (They can't miss a giant belly and all the changes happening in our family, ha!)

We decided to tell the kids first, and that is a theme that you'll probably notice throughout this conversation. Having four kids who are a little bit older than what I'm used to when I'm pregnant has been a really big difference this time around that has inspired me to keep the news close. It's almost like this pregnancy has been more for them, for us and our family, than anyone else.

Then we told our family, and close friends — people who do life with us and are close to us. And that was it! Everybody else has just been pleasantly surprised when I bumped into them with a larger belly than normal, ha! Seeing people's reactions in real time, in real life, has actually been really fun.

Making the decision to keep the news a surprise

Emily: Yes, I can imagine that would be sweet! Okay, so I'm curious: did you know from the beginning that you were going to keep this news off the internet, or did it just kind of happen?

Nancy: I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, at first. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to announce it later on in the pregnancy — I just wanted to enjoy it with my family at least for the first half, and then maybe announce it at 25 or 30 weeks.

The closer we got to that mark, the more I felt I didn’t want to share it before the birth. It felt right and different for me to keep this one close. And Will [her husband] would ask me, you know, when are we going to announce this online? Because previously it was a big deal! We would plan it together! We would take the pictures and it was a whole thing and it was really fun.

But this time I told him how I felt, and he just looked at me with a big smile and goes, I love that.

Reflections on past pregnancies and births, and a turning point

Emily: Me, too. Okay, take us back. You mentioned sharing other pregnancies, and you and I are going on almost ten years of sharing pregnancies and birth on the internet. For those who perhaps haven't been with you this whole time, tell us a little bit about how that process has evolved through the first four kids.

Nancy: For context, my kids are nine, seven, six, and three — and now a newborn. Ten years ago, the internet was a different place. Instagram, Facebook, it was all very different. To me, it felt safer and less judgmental. It felt more celebratory, and we didn’t feel as nervous or protective of sharing our kids online as many of us do now.

With my first, especially as a professional photographer at the time, it was a no-brainer for me to share that pregnancy at 12 weeks, complete with an official photo shoot. I shared bump photos all along the way! Maybe every week?!

It was just so, I don't know, magical — just the anticipation of a new mom delighting in community. It all felt really sweet.

With my second baby, we did the pregnancy announcement a little later — at 15 or 16 weeks — and then shared about the pregnancy all the way through until we announced her birth.

Now buckle up for the third pregnancy and birth, ha! With our first two, we didn’t find out the genders beforehand, but we did with our third. We were told we were having a girl, and imagine our surprise when I delivered a baby boy!! We shared the news and the birth photo and story went viral. We were on CBS Morning, on Inside Edition — I mean, talk about sharing about pregnancy and birth on the internet! I grew by about 10,000 Instagram followers in a few days.

And again, it was fun! It wasn’t bad at all. Everyone was in shock and just, like, enjoying this crazy story along with us.

Onto number four. I followed my trend and shared about this pregnancy a bit later, but still shared along the way and about his birth.

And then I think this was a turning point for me. As soon as Benji was born, I decided to take six months off of social media — cold turkey. He was born in July of 2021 and, you know, 2020 and 2021 were very tumultuous times on the internet (and in the world). As someone with tens of thousands of followers, there were times I felt scrutinized, judged, attacked. And I just thought, I am not going to let these newborn days be tainted in any kind of way. And so I took six full months off and it was lovely. I absolutely loved it.

He's three and a half now, and the landscape of social media and how we use it has continued to change, often not for the better. And maybe it’s selfish, but I guess I just wanted this pregnancy to be ours, for our family.

Emily: It's funny — on a very practical level, when you are having your first baby, you have a lot more time to do things like craft a calligraphy sign and take professional photos for an announcement. You don’t necessarily have that time when it comes to a third or fourth or fifth baby.

For me, as one example of how the landscape has changed: I don’t think I ever shared about our third daughter’s birth on Facebook! I just have a few hundred connections there, but it’s interesting how from my first child born in 2016 to my last born in 2021, how low that platform had fallen in importance for us. I guess we just figured the people we’re close and connected to would obviously know!

Nancy pregnant with her third baby and me pregnant with my second baby!

Pros and cons of a new approach

Okay — you've spoken to this a bit already, but: big picture, how did it go? Did you like doing something different for this pregnancy? What were your favorite parts of keeping it close? And also, was there anything that you didn't like, or that was hard or felt complicated?

Nancy: Overall, I've really loved it. With the ages of my kids, they just got it this time around. They were really invested. And so my focus really shifted to them, and experiencing and walking through this pregnancy with them. That has been really sweet.

This pregnancy has felt slower for me in a lot of ways, and I'm really grateful for that because before this, every pregnancy felt faster, faster, faster. Taking the technology piece out felt like it really slowed it down.

Emily: Well, you know, they say that novelty and doing things differently — even something as simple as driving a different way home — makes our experience of time slow down. And so maybe doing this pregnancy in a different way really has helped you savor it. A neat advantage you probably didn't see coming!

Nancy: It's so true. There have definitely been a few times where I've wanted to pick up my phone and share about something, a quick Story — like, my goodness, solidarity to pregnant moms around Christmas time! And every time I had that urge, I would just pause and interrogate it, and remind myself that this moment is for me. Being that this is likely our last baby, I wanted it to feel slow and to savor every bit of it, and I’m so grateful.

Emily: It's almost like, as your kids grew and became more mature, they stood in for community, and helped you experience and savor the pregnancy in a way that perhaps in the past you had relied on folks on the internet to do — which is not bad! It's just different.

What you said made me think about something my Dad says a lot about family and having kids: that part of the purpose of creating a family is creating a community of people who you not only love, but who you enjoy spending time with. You can do that with a family of any size, but certainly once you get more kids in the mix you truly do have a community in your home that you are experiencing life with, that's praying for you, that you can turn to and say, wow, isn't this crazy the laundry detergent just exploded on the slate floor.¹

I think that it’s really cool that even in the way you're experiencing this pregnancy, you're seeing new layers to the beauty of creating a community within your own family. I love that.

Nancy: Yes! I picture myself pregnant with number one, and my life was consumed with building my business online. I spent most of my time at my computer while my husband was at work, and a lot of my interaction came from friends on the internet. Fast forward to now, my life is so full with the people around my body and in my kitchen. They truly are my community. Everyone else is just a wonderful bonus.

I think the biggest downside for me personally, as someone who will always be a photographer at heart, is that I have not documented the little moments of this pregnancy like I have before. When I’m sharing online, my mind automatically goes to that place, wanting to capture those moments of beauty and solidarity, but it fades into the background when I’m not. And that makes me a little sad, because this is the last pregnancy. The upside, of course, is remaining more present and not introducing my phone into as many moments.

Emily: You know, “taking it for the ‘gram” gets a bad rap, and rightly so. We never want to prioritize someone else's consumption of our experiences over the experiences themselves. But I think that's a very valid point. You as a photographer, me as a writer — creating is one way we process experiences and shape narratives about what is happening to us. Taking those photos of small moments — or, in my case, writing about them — and sharing them with other people, that is a way we make sense of the world and solidify memories.

It sounds like it was a worthwhile trade-off, though.

Transparency and authenticity

Okay — moving along. You are a bit of a public figure.² Did you ever feel bad about keeping the news quiet? Did you ever feel like you owed your followers this information, or worry that they might judge you for not sharing it, or feel betrayed?

Nancy: Yes. I feel my best when I'm living a transparent, honest life. I set out to keep this pregnancy to ourselves so that I could be authentic in my own life and show up one hundred percent for my people. I did, and I have no regrets about it.

However, it became very difficult to post authentically anywhere online — about any area of my life — because it often felt like everything I might share connected back in some way to the fact that I was about to have a baby. I am very pregnant every single day, ha.

And so what happened was I just got quiet. I got quieter and quieter and quieter. And it was fine! I just felt like I couldn't totally show up, and it was easier to say nothing than figure out a way to share.

It was a reminder for me that the best things — and sometimes the worst things — are offline. And that we never know all that people are going through, good and bad. And maybe when we eventually do announce this baby, that will be a very physical reminder for some people — like, Nancy and her family have had an entirely different year than I thought that they'd had! In my own small way, I hope I contributed to the narrative that people can share whatever they choose to share on the internet and that we can wish them well. I’m speaking to myself, too!

Emily: Yes! A friend I hadn’t connected with individually in years had a baby this year, and I found out from an Instagram post announcing the birth. My first thought was certainly not, she should have told me! Or she should have told the internet! It was just delight and excitement for her family. I hope that’s how this news is taken, too.

I just love that it's a reminder that change is possible. That you are never — no matter whether you're a consumer or a creator on the internet — locked into doing things the way you've always done them. You can always choose a new path if your old one is not working for you anymore. I hope this will be a beautiful permission slip for other women, no matter how many babies they’ve had or followers they have.

That one time the news slipped out

Okay — while this was mostly a surprise, there was at least one moment when this news did make it onto the internet, which perhaps we should have seen coming. You were at the vow renewal of a dear mutual friend of ours, and there were lots of guests with internet presences there. And when photos and videos were shared, there was your very beautiful and very pregnant self! How did you deal with that?

Nancy: Oh yes, there was no mistaking that I was pregnant, ha! Right after, I did field a handful of direct messages, people saying, wait, what? You're pregnant? How long have you been pregnant? Did I miss an announcement?

And even at the vow renewal itself, a lot of people came up to me and were like, I'm so sorry, I didn't know! Did I miss the announcement? And I was like, no, you didn't miss anything! Even those moments were sweet, because I was able to experience the fun of those reactions live versus them on the other side of their phone having those reactions. That was a gift to me, actually.

When the reel first got shared, it was like, well, the news is out. And then I just thought, no, my plan hasn't really gone anywhere. I can still do what I've set out to do. I knew that this was a possibility all along! No hard feelings at all. When I stepped back, I realized in about a week it would all die down and nobody’s going to think about it again. And that’s what happened, ha.

Emily: A humbling reminder for us all! To finish up, what final words of wisdom or advice do you have to share with a gal who’s pregnant, or thinking about becoming pregnant, whether this is her first pregnancy or not? What would you say to her about deciding when, how, or how much to share about a pregnancy online?

Nancy: It’s simple, but my biggest piece of advice would be to do whatever makes you feel the most joyful, and to do whatever brings you the most delight.

If it’s your first pregnancy, or the road to pregnancy has been hard, maybe that’s a huge announcement and you want to share it with the whole world. If you want to do that, you absolutely should.

But if you get pregnant and you're like, this just feels so special and we just want to keep it close, keep it close. There's not a right or wrong way to go about this. I've done it five different ways, five different times! Technology is always changing, and that means the way that our hearts interact with people and technology is always changing, too.

And I prayed about it. Lord, what do want for my family? How can this bring the most delight to you and to our family? How can I be the most present? Those are all good questions to ask.

Emily: I love that. The best advice. And with that, I think we’ve wrapped it up! We've talked about everything anyone could ever want to know about this decision, ha.

Nancy: It feels like this conversation has been pent up inside me and I’ve wanted to explore it, so thank you for your curiosity! I hope it will be helpful.

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Friends, if you’ve made it this far, I would love to here: what has changed about what you share on the internet, or about pregnancies, or about life with kids, along the way? Let’s chat!

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1. True story, this happened just before we hopped on Zoom to record 🙃

2. As of this writing, Nancy has 35k Instagram followers.