The Charlie Kirk Show - Why We Kept Our Pregnancy Private—My Wife Shares Her Story on 'Midweek Rise Up'

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's Anna Charlie Kirk Show, a special episode of my wife talking about her pregnancy.

00:00:07.000 I think you'll really enjoy it.

00:00:08.000 The great Erica Kirk, I think you'll love it.

00:00:11.000 If you want to support the Charlie Kirk show, go to charliekirk.com slash support.

00:00:14.000 We love all the kind wishes and give my wife's podcast a subscription.

00:00:19.000 I think that she would really appreciate it.

00:00:21.000 Details are in the bio.

00:00:23.000 It's Midweek Rise Up.

00:00:24.000 Make sure you subscribe.

00:00:25.000 Email me your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:28.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA Today at tpusa.com and get involved with our efforts to help save the country politically as well at tpaction.com.

00:00:37.000 Two organizations, one big mission, let's save Western civilization.

00:00:41.000 Email me your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:43.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:44.000 Here we go.

00:00:45.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:47.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:49.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:53.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:56.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:57.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:58.000 His spirit is love of this country.

00:01:00.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:06.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:15.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:18.000 Hey, everyone, it's E, and welcome to a new episode of Midweek Rise Up.

00:01:24.000 I know it's been a hot minute since we've dropped an episode, but today is going to be fun.

00:01:30.000 Usually we have a word for the week, but we're taking a minor detour with this episode because I have gotten thousands and thousands of messages about this topic and why Charlie and I decided to do what we did by keeping my pregnancy extremely private.

00:01:45.000 So this episode is dedicated to my family, extended family, friends, and followers who are just finding out about our new baby girl in real time all together.

00:01:56.000 Let's dive right in.

00:01:57.000 Motherhood is an absolute blessing.

00:02:00.000 And yes, children are a gift from the Lord.

00:02:02.000 But I feel like in today's society, motherhood and even marriage to some extent has turned into an idol.

00:02:09.000 And just hear me out on this.

00:02:11.000 I'm not saying that everyone holds motherhood and marriage as an idol in their heart.

00:02:14.000 That's not what I'm saying.

00:02:16.000 But the pressure that's put on Christian women to find a husband, settle down, have kids, is immense. 0.85

00:02:24.000 We create almost like a quarter life crisis for girls when they get to a certain age. 0.99

00:02:29.000 And then once they hit their 30s or a little bit above their 30s or almost into their 40s, they feel like if they still haven't found the guy, had the kids, then they're running up against a ticking time clock as well as their own biological clock.

00:02:42.000 And some women aren't meant to be married. 1.00

00:02:44.000 Maybe they've chosen to live a life of celibacy and maybe some women can't have kids. 1.00

00:02:50.000 So instead, they're adopting.

00:02:51.000 Everyone's on their own unique journey.

00:02:53.000 And when it comes to the prevalent nature of time becoming a pressure trigger, we have to remember that we serve a God who is the author and finisher of time.

00:03:02.000 He knows the exact number of our days and the exact desires of our heart.

00:03:07.000 So if you fall into this category, just breathe deeply and know that God's timing is always perfect.

00:03:12.000 Even when it makes absolutely no sense, his wisdom and knowledge is always way above our own.

00:03:18.000 But if you truly take a minute and analyze how our culture has evolved over the years, much of the sacredness of motherhood and even marriage, I feel is lost and completely overlooked or is heavily influenced by culture and being viewed through a modern lens.

00:03:34.000 I know that calling it an idol is a weighted statement, but an idol is whatever you look at and say in your heart of hearts, if I have that, then I'll feel more secure.

00:03:43.000 If I have that, I'll feel like I have true value and I'll feel like my life has meaning and it'll be significant.

00:03:49.000 Idols are essentially good things that we turn into ultimate things.

00:03:53.000 So for me, personally speaking, there were a multitude of reasons why taking on the role and responsibility of motherhood was not taken lightly.

00:04:01.000 And I didn't want to start the journey without allowing it to fully penetrate my identity, my heart, my spiritual formation, and walk with the Lord in ways that weren't intended for public viewing, in ways that weren't setting it on a pedestal.

00:04:16.000 I wasn't doing the whole pre- and post-pregnancy dance for other people to be put on display and for everyone to take notes.

00:04:22.000 That's not me.

00:04:23.000 This time was precious and intentional, not just for myself, but for my husband and our precious baby girl and our little family.

00:04:31.000 And what I am so tremendously grateful for was that before I could even share what was on my heart with all of this with Charlie, he already knew and he felt the same way about keeping everything private.

00:04:41.000 And we were just on the same page from day one, which was super, super helpful and such a blessing.

00:04:46.000 When I found out I was pregnant, the Lord really impressed upon me to reflect a lot more intently on the first few chapters of the Gospel of Luke.

00:04:54.000 And I found myself rereading multiple times the verses of interaction with regard to the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son, and then the verses of Mary visiting Elizabeth, who was also pregnant.

00:05:07.000 And although the chapters are limited with exact detail on how they carried out their pregnancies back then, what truly captured my attention was Mary's heart.

00:05:16.000 After Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, she went to Elizabeth in haste to visit her.

00:05:21.000 And Elizabeth was about six months pregnant and Mary stayed with her for three months.

00:05:24.000 And most scholars think that Mary stayed even for the birth of John.

00:05:28.000 But for those three months, Mary was there to help Elizabeth and to encourage her.

00:05:33.000 And it's through this that Mary teaches us that even in the womb, Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.

00:05:40.000 There was no boasting, no pomp and circumstance, no parades, no email blasts or social media posts for obvious reasons.

00:05:47.000 But it was intimate.

00:05:48.000 It was sacred.

00:05:49.000 It was holy.

00:05:50.000 It was a gift from God, something not to be taken for granted.

00:05:54.000 And in various verses in Luke, it shows Mary's heart as a mother on display and how she would keep things within her heart to ponder them and hold them there.

00:06:02.000 Like in Luke chapter 2, verses 18 through 19, in Luke chapter 2, verse 51, there was something really powerful about her continual spirit of contemplation.

00:06:12.000 And that's when I started to think of all the different transitions that we go through in life.

00:06:16.000 And I asked myself, how many times have I been in service and also carried a spirit of digging deeper and more intimately into my relationship with Christ during an active, life-changing transition?

00:06:29.000 I personally find transitions in life absolutely fascinating, regardless if they're small or on a massive scale.

00:06:35.000 And no doubt you yourself have experienced many throughout your life.

00:06:39.000 And if not many, then I mean at least one.

00:06:41.000 But it's almost like we go through a rite of passage in life continuously.

00:06:46.000 And sometimes these transitions are chosen and sometimes they're not.

00:06:49.000 But from being a little child to an adolescent to a teenager to a young adult to an adult, engaged, married parent, grandparent, those are just age transitions, not to mention work transitions, friendship transitions, spiritual transitions.

00:07:04.000 The list goes on.

00:07:05.000 And no matter how much we try to prepare for these transitions in life, I don't know if we're ever truly ready for what's on the other side.

00:07:12.000 No matter how many books you might read or how many step-by-step guides you study or how many opinions you saturate your brain with, I really don't know if anything can truly prepare you for the unknown.

00:07:24.000 And that's why I feel it's so necessary during these moments to surrender and remain in lockstep with the Lord and his will.

00:07:31.000 Because it's only after you've gone through the transition that you're like, oh, I see now.

00:07:35.000 Or like, wow, I really had no clue what I was doing, but now I understand.

00:07:40.000 So with this newness and beginning of a fresh chapter in life, bringing a new soul into this world, I wanted to make sure I did my inner work, my soul work to prepare my heart and establish a new foundation as to how I'd enter this new chapter, which would be vulnerably and open and in a space free of judgment from others.

00:07:59.000 Because let's be honest, I'd probably never get this exact time back again to do this, especially if we have more kids in the future.

00:08:08.000 Over the course of these nine months, I've learned a lot, obviously about myself, my body, but I was able to do it under the least amount of pressure as possible in such a high-pressured world that we live in, especially the one that Charlie and I are in.

00:08:21.000 And I was beyond grateful for that.

00:08:23.000 I was able to reprioritize and create a hyper-focused layout of what I wanted these precious nine months to look like.

00:08:29.000 It reminded me a lot of almost being like a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon, having months to pick out the exact colors of the wings you want to have before you get out and fly.

00:08:37.000 This sacred time of transitioning into motherhood was such a precious time, and I did not want to lose perspective of that because you go through nine months of purging your old ways and your old self to make room for the new.

00:08:49.000 And to me, the act of service found within this precious red of passage was to honor my mother, to journey through these nine months in such a way where it was private and honest and raw and real, not filtered, but to be able to feel the depths of emotions and shifts.

00:09:05.000 And I knew that in order to be the mother my daughter needs and deserves, I needed to properly honor this path and transformation.

00:09:12.000 Priorities shift, love deepens, instincts intensify, and it's so different for everyone.

00:09:18.000 So please don't think I'm giving advice here.

00:09:20.000 I'm just sharing what Charlie and I did and the reasons for why we did it.

00:09:24.000 And what's wild to think is that when you're pregnant, you're someone's first home.

00:09:28.000 So for me, that's where my focus turned back onto my own first home, my own precious mother, my mama Lowe, to learn, to honor, to serve, to embrace, even more deeply than I was before.

00:09:41.000 My focus was on a spiritual growth, drenched in grace and introspective stillness, away from the noise of the world.

00:09:49.000 God had me right where he needed me these past nine months, right by my mama's side as she continues on the path of healing that she's on for every doctor's appointment, every high and every low.

00:10:00.000 And not just being her medical advocate, but having that intentional time with her for whatever she needed.

00:10:05.000 I wanted to be there even more than I was previously before, and I was totally sold out for the journey.

00:10:11.000 I had this dedication within me to just explore the depths of this foundation called motherhood through the divine lens of scripture and also the stretch marks of my mother's own heart.

00:10:21.000 The time with her was so precious.

00:10:23.000 It was undivided and so sweet because I knew that as each day passed, it was one day closer to when my little one would be in this world and everything would completely change.

00:10:32.000 So to honor my mother was to serve her.

00:10:34.000 And yes, that meant canceling a majority, if not all, of my speaking engagements this year and rearrange a large portion of my work schedule so that I could be there for her and I wouldn't trade that time for the world.

00:10:46.000 Because I had this special time to listen to her stories even more intently than before.

00:10:50.000 And I'd ask her about growing up.

00:10:52.000 I'd ask her about what it was like being a single mother, just having moved with me to a completely new state and starting her own company to the losses and the winds of life and just soaking in her wisdom and being held in her arms on days that were a little tougher than others with morning sickness.

00:11:08.000 Because sometimes no matter how old you are, you just need your mom.

00:11:12.000 So as the months continued onward, I yearned and craved and sought daily for the Holy Spirit to influence all my activity, renewing my mind with a fixed perspective on Christ, especially in moments of silence, which made room for serenity and fostered intimacy with God.

00:11:29.000 And I cherished it so deeply.

00:11:31.000 It was this precious time to assess and reassess and release from the distractions in my life.

00:11:36.000 And there were many that I purged, but one I want to focus on for the sake of brevity for this episode is social media.

00:11:42.000 Because in the beginning of my pregnancy, I found myself being more of a consumer of social media.

00:11:48.000 I wasn't posting as much.

00:11:49.000 And of course, the Instagram algorithm always knows more about your life than you want it to.

00:11:54.000 I'm literally convinced they listen to all of our conversations because you can have one conversation about it, and then there's an ad for it that pops up on your Instagram or your browser.

00:12:02.000 It's super sketchy.

00:12:03.000 So, lo and behold, my explore page slowly transitioned from Bible verses and sneakers and fashion and viral political and pop culture videos to people's gender reveals, pregnancy announcements, pregnancy workouts, just literally everything baby culture with some of my old stuff of sneakers and fashion, like peppered in between.

00:12:24.000 But the consumer role of social media can be so dangerous and so taxing on your mental health.

00:12:30.000 So, after that, I decided to take two months off from social completely cold turkey.

00:12:34.000 I didn't want to look at it, I didn't want the app on my phone, I just needed a break.

00:12:38.000 And I realized very quickly how grateful I was to be insulated from the intense societal pressure of what you're expected to do when expecting.

00:12:48.000 And sometimes I think maybe it's not even societal pressure, and instead we just put this pressure on ourselves because we're trying to keep up with someone else's square grid of stagnant photos and highlight reels.

00:12:58.000 But for Charlie and me, our focus wasn't on a gender reveal or a baby shower or sending out an announcement.

00:13:05.000 Again, I hold zero judgment for people who do these traditions, especially if it's a pregnancy that you've been waiting for for years.

00:13:11.000 Or if you're just super excited and that's what you want to do, that's amazing, that's awesome.

00:13:15.000 But it's just not us.

00:13:16.000 And I mean, quite frankly, even for our wedding, we didn't do the bachelor party or the bachelorette parties or even a massive wedding celebration for our actual wedding.

00:13:25.000 We just really hold privacy sacred.

00:13:27.000 Everything we do work-wise is already all out there, and even some of our personal stuff that we can't control.

00:13:33.000 But it's so precious to be able to keep just a few things to yourself as you protect what and who you love and what you cherish, especially between death threats and just random mean messages that we sometimes get online.

00:13:45.000 And we didn't need or want to deal with that evil nature of people wishing us ill will on us or our child that's in the womb during such a precious moment in our lives.

00:13:54.000 But even too, social media can be super savage.

00:13:57.000 And what sometimes we forget is that you allow people to see what you want them to see.

00:14:01.000 You have full control over that.

00:14:03.000 You have the choice not to post something.

00:14:05.000 And yes, it still happened if you didn't post about it.

00:14:07.000 But seriously, though, I kept it all off of social media for a multitude of reasons.

00:14:12.000 And I'm sure you can come up with dozens of your own as to why I did.

00:14:15.000 But honestly, I just had zero desire to do the whole like post-my bump weekly photo to have a million strangers comment and scrutinize my body and make me look at this season of life differently than God was having me view it.

00:14:28.000 And in all honesty, I probably only took about two or three photos of me with my bump, and those will stay in my own personal phone vault as a precious memory.

00:14:36.000 But don't get me wrong, again, there are plenty of pregnancy and post-pregnancy influencers out there who are amazing and they're so smart and they're awesome at what they do and they're super informative.

00:14:46.000 But it also has become a total echo chamber and almost like a competitive nature of comparison.

00:14:52.000 Regardless if you're a new mom or if you're a mom of 10, it's a total whiplash of posts being like, see how much I love being pregnant or see how much I hate being pregnant or see how quickly I can bounce back from my old body to my new body, back to my old body.

00:15:07.000 See how good I am at breastfeeding and all these different topics.

00:15:10.000 And I'm definitely not a pregnancy influencer.

00:15:13.000 That won't be me.

00:15:13.000 But honestly, kudos to those who are because if you see some of the comments that are left on some of these pregnancy influencer videos and photos, when they either offer advice or share something that works for them or their family or their child, it's unbelievable the amount of negative chatter and trigger fingers hitting the black mirror in response or judgment.

00:15:31.000 Again, super savage or it can be super uplifting.

00:15:34.000 Just depends on your audience, I guess.

00:15:36.000 So, I definitely wanted to avoid that, to cut out the noise and just remove the distraction of the outside world so I could focus on diving into scripture more, preparing what Proclaim Streetwear and Bible in 365 would look like the few months after birth and pouring into my husband and soaking in this time together as a family of two.

00:15:54.000 Life is so precious, and we get so boggled down with the noise of society.

00:15:58.000 And if we're not like society, then people think there's something wrong.

00:16:02.000 When in fact, it should be the opposite.

00:16:04.000 If you look like society, you cannot impact it.

00:16:07.000 You cannot influence it.

00:16:09.000 For me, stepping away from the societal norms of what it's like to be pregnant in today's world, swarmed by everyone's opinion on how to do it right, was what I needed to do.

00:16:19.000 Serving and honoring my mother, immersing myself in scripture, removing the distractions, tucking away and relearning the rhythms of grace that were surrounding me in such a new and divine way that I had never experienced before.

00:16:32.000 That's what I was craving.

00:16:34.000 That's what my soul was craving, and that's what I nourished it with.

00:16:37.000 Life is sacred.

00:16:39.000 Life is precious, and it's not to be taken for granted.

00:16:42.000 So, as I was helping to grow another life literally inside of me, I thought to myself, what are you doing with your own life during this time?

00:16:50.000 This short but long nine-month window.

00:16:52.000 So, do I think everyone should have a private or secret pregnancy?

00:16:55.000 Absolutely not.

00:16:56.000 It's not meant for everyone.

00:16:58.000 You do what is best for you and your family, and only you can know what that is and what that looks like and design it from there.

00:17:06.000 I just had my own personal reasons.

00:17:07.000 And at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, I can honestly say it was the most intentional nine months of my life, and I wouldn't have changed a thing.

00:17:16.000 Yes, motherhood is sacred, and truly so is privacy in today's world.

00:17:19.000 And honestly, I don't have it all figured out.

00:17:23.000 I never probably will.

00:17:24.000 I'm like, how many days into this whole motherhood thing?

00:17:28.000 But if you're single, listening to this, and have the desire of a family one day, take heart and know that what God has intended for you will not pass you by.

00:17:37.000 And if you're a mother and you're listening to this, you're a true hero.

00:17:41.000 Not only were you someone's first home in the most precious way possible, you also taught someone how to use a spoon, fork, and a knife.

00:17:48.000 Motherhood is not the destination, though.

00:17:51.000 It's just one of the transitional stepping stones within this wild journey that we call life.

00:17:56.000 Thank you for hearing my heart out, you guys.

00:17:58.000 And thank you to all of you who have shown your love and support to Charlie and I as we enter in this new season as parents.

00:18:04.000 You guys are loved.

00:18:05.000 Go rise up.

00:18:07.000 Thanks for joining us today.

00:18:08.000 I hope that these words encouraged and challenged you and postured your heart for the rest of the week ahead.

00:18:13.000 If you have a minute, go to the subscribe and review section of this podcast.

00:18:16.000 Leave us a word or a Bible verse that you've been carrying in your heart throughout the week that keeps you encouraged and motivated.

00:18:22.000 I really want this podcast review space to be an added bookmark for that simple reminder that we're all in this together and that God's got this.

00:18:29.000 Feel free to share this episode with your friends, family, or on social media.

00:18:33.000 Also, for more information on Proclaim Streetwear and Bible in 365, please click the links below.

00:18:38.000 We're so grateful to have you join us right here on Midweek Rise Up.

00:18:45.000 Thank you so much for listening.

00:18:46.000 If you want to send us some support, it's charliekirk.com slash support.

00:18:50.000 God bless you guys.

00:18:51.000 Thanks so much.

00:18:55.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - September 06, 2022

Why We Kept Our Pregnancy Private—My Wife Shares Her Story on 'Midweek Rise Up'

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript