Directing While Pregnant

Introduction: Fears, Uncertainties, Why I’m Doing This

I found out I was pregnant on my last day of Wizard of Oz rehearsal. After a sleepless night accompanied by many more trips to the bathroom than I was used to, I was greeted by two little pink lines and the knowledge that my life would never be the same.

I’ve always wanted to be a parent and I’ve always wanted a life in the theatre. And I’ve always hated that these seem like contradicting desires.  Now that I am roughly one week away from birthing my child, I have decided it is time to chronicle my experiences as a pregnant artist figuring out my own unique path to artistry and motherhood. I hope that these posts will resonate with other artists, theatrical or otherwise, questioning if parenthood is the right path for them.

August 2025, didn't know I had a stowaway on board

Why I’m Writing This

For better or for worse, I’m a bit of a product of Girlboss culture. I listen to a lot of entrepreneurial and personal branding podcasts, because I feel like the advice given by the hosts and interviewees can be relevant to how I am pursuing a career as a director. A few weeks ago, a conversation on one of the podcasts was about how women get ahead in the workplace by being visible, while men get ahead by purely existing. Deep in my third trimester, I wondered how I was supposed to maintain visibility while in a state of baby-induced hibernation. I thought about how I have been handling this question for the past nine months, and decided that writing it down might be a good way to connect with other people asking the same questions as me. 

Why I’m Afraid to be Writing This

Y’all, parenthood, motherhood, being a woman is so freaking fraught. As I type these words, I am actively building my next season as a director/professor/artist/new mom. Although it is illegal to discriminate based on pregnancy/parenthood, we all know that still happens to women every day, even if it is subconscious. What if someone reads this and decides not to hire me because I’m having a baby at the end of the month? Or beyond giving birth, since this will live on the internet forever, will I be deemed too challenging to work with because I will have to manage childcare?

April 2026, somehow still pregnant.

Why I Have to Write This And Post It and Engage With People About It

If I’m not sharing my story and advocating for myself and my needs and showing other people that there is a way to combine caregiving and artistry, how can any changes in our current culture be made? How can I grow a village when no one knows that I want/need one? 

So, back to that fateful morning in August. Suddenly I was confronted with a certain sort of uncertainty that I think only pregnancy can put into perspective. The knowledge that my life was about to change and having no idea how my life was going to change, which truthfully is how we all exist all of the time, but there is something about experiencing the rapid and unexpected/expected symptoms that come and go as your little parasite grows inside of you that makes all of it feel more real. I’m going to try and chronicle how I managed the onslaught by breaking it down via trimester (as one of my fellow new-mom friends told me “my life is now measured in weeks”).

See you next week!