Before I found out I was pregnant with Olivia, I was surer than sure that one day I’d be that annoying mom – posting pictures of my children continuously across each and every social channel. I imagined a well planned “we’re expecting” photoshoot. I saw us crafting an overly stereotypical gender reveal post. And I was sure that either one or both of us with be uploading a “welcome to the world” photo to Facebook within minutes of delivery. I mean, I half expected to be live tweeting my labor. (Kidding, kind of.)

But when I actually became pregnant, I was surprised to find myself feeling protective of our news. Leading up to the 3 month “safe zone”, I began thinking that perhaps sharing every pregnancy symptom and milestone on Facebook wasn’t for me. I started treasuring my pregnancy in a very private, and personal way, and I suddenly felt as if sharing anything on social media (let alone over-sharing) was borderline inappropriate. Our challenges between weeks 12 – 24 reinforced my hesitation to keep our pregnancy progress off social media, and it was only after we received as many positive prenatal tests results as we possibly could receive that I finally agreed to share with the Facebook world we were expecting.

Then Olivia was born. Sweet, sweet Olivia. How I imagined Olivia coming into this world was far from how it happened, and these first couple of weeks with our little girl have rocked us to our cores.

Once again, I found myself feeling protective of my little girl, my new family of 3, our unexpected and heartbreaking situation. In the days following my delivery, I wanted to talk to only family and a small handful of friends. Some of the women I’ve always considered best friends didn’t learn I had gone into labor for almost 2 weeks.

Days went by and Luke began asking whether I was comfortable sharing our news on Facebook. As we approached my due date, I agreed it was an appropriate time. Too many people were texting us, asking how I was doing in anticipation of my due date. And we were happy. We were proud to be parents, and proud of our little girl, and wanted to share her with the world.

With over 500 reactions and almost 100 comments, I’d say our little girl made quite the splash in the social world. Making mommy and daddy and the BN world proud.