Motherhood, maternal risk, and the WNBA: What I learned reporting through pregnancy

LAS VEGAS — I watched my smile begin to crack on the Teams meeting. I could faintly hear my 6-month-old's loud babbling from another room, as a new coworker offered some action items in a planning session for the story you’re reading now. “I’m not sure how many photos and videos you took, but those would be great,” she said.

My mind began to race. How much did I document my experience working as a Las Vegas Aces’ beat writer during their 2025 WNBA championship run? I was pregnant from start to finish as I chronicled nearly every game of that historic season.

The experience was empowering in many moments of connection with the league’s abundance of working moms in sports. I knew I had a few pictures and videos to share, but I wasn't proud of some of them. The difficult truth is I started hiding as soon as my belly began to show, and I did it for reasons I wish I could go back and change.

Instead, I’m left remembering how I felt maneuvering to the back for a group photo with a bunch of my media peers while covering the WNBA Finals at 37 weeks pregnant. It's trendy for expecting moms to disappear from social media or creatively disguise their stomachs in photos until they welcome their babies. But I didn’t do it because I wanted to stockpile Instagram likes on a “hard launch” of my newborn.