I remember the day so clearly as I watched Kelly Clarkson saunter past me during the Country Music Awards. As fast as she walked past me, the whispers started abound about how she really let herself go. How it was a shame that she wasn’t taking better care of herself.

A week later she announced that she was pregnant with her first child.

There is something that sometimes happens with female recording artists and pregnancy. Or at least there was something in my mind that happened. Their career basically falls off a cliff and you never hear from them again. Some artists that come into mind are Michelle Branch, Ashlee Simpson, Kate Earl…

Oh you don’t know Kate Earl? Oh that’s because she was about to blow up and got pregnant and fell off the map.

This is the kind of psychosis that the “Music Business” makes you believe sometimes.

Then again, the “Music Business” also makes women believe that they have no shot in hell for a great career after the age of 30. Then you have people like Rachel Platten tearing up these myths, and of course myself.

This is not the first time in which I had to struggle with my age and my viability in the music industry. I have felt this way before. I have felt old, past my prime and beyond having any ability to make it – all at the ripe age of 21.

Sometimes old habits die hard, and sometimes even the myths you shatter loom in the back of your head, like the shadows of your fears. The only way to rid of those shadows is to eliminate the fears.

When I looked at the first pregnancy test in September, I could not believe what I saw. “Really? Now?” was my first thought. As an exclusively Christmas artist, my season was about to begin. Just like Santa Claus, I get underway to meet, greet, and travel to as many places as possible to spread my Christmas music around the world.

My emotions truly ran the gamut. Some things I have said to myself:

“How is this possible at my age? I thought it would take forever!”
“Fuck. My career is over!”
“This is so exciting! This is what Christmas is about! Children!”
“Fuck. If I look pregnant, my season is over.”
“What if I lose the baby during the season?”
“I’m not ready for this!”

I had prepared my entire life, and all year to embark on this season, but had not prepared for being a mother at all. I was too afraid to let the people that worked with me know what was going on because I didn’t want to let on any inkling of weakness.

They say when you don’t know what to do, do nothing. That’s what I did. I did nothing about letting anyone know about my pregnancy except for my immediate family. Even they found out only around Thanksgiving.

Quite frankly, I didn’t want anyone to judge me. Like I had seen they had judged Kelly Clarkson in front of my eyes. Like I had judged other artists for falling off the face of the planet. I wanted to protect myself and my unborn baby from the stress and tribulations of this superficial business.

My decision hurt me in retrospect.

My body started to morph into something I did not know. The first trimester woes of morning sickness and hormone changes took a toll on me. It was compounded by the stress of managing a record label and being its principal artist, in the middle of the only season we have for my business. I felt isolated and helpless in this idea that most women my age are at a high risk for miscarriage. How would I be able to carry the stress of maintaining a viable pregnancy and the stress of managing the expectations of people who worked with me and my partners.

It was the most sleepless 3 months of my life. The baggage carried seemed to be all beneath my eyes. The windows to my soul were heavy.

During the holiday season, I’m a pretty well known Christmas music artist, and I really have no excuse to hide. It is the time of the year where my social media team insists I take lots of pictures. Thank goodness that there is Facebook Live these days. No chance in hiding my impending bloat. No way to hide if I don’t want to wear too much makeup because I’m afraid the cleansers would hurt the baby. No place to go but all out. There are no Snapchat filters in the world to hide pregnancy. Trust me. I’ve looked.

Traveling on tour was incredibly difficult. I was fighting tremendous morning sickness and trying to sneak in morning sickness candies and saltines around co-workers. Trying to perform in front of radio executives when all I wanted to do was puke and collapse. Anything I could find on Amazon that smelled like a morning sickness cure, I ordered same day and shoved into my bags and pockets. It was the most intense acting work I’ve ever done in my life.

Forget the actual acting I had to do for my music video. I did leave an Easter egg in the story line. I did take a pregnancy test and added it in the music video. To this day, I consider it my birth announcement. The look on my face is pretty genuine to how I felt. The irony is that the music video presents a little engagement ring. A day after shooting the video, I had my first sonogram and the baby looked just like a little engagement ring. Life is charming like that. My little baby boy was presenting himself as a little gift, with the soundtrack of a heartbeat.

I knew then, I was married to my pregnancy.