{"id":282692,"date":"2021-06-24T14:11:53","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T11:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/first-gay-miss-america-deidre-downs-opens-up-about-wifes-pregnancy\/"},"modified":"2021-06-24T14:11:53","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T11:11:53","slug":"first-gay-miss-america-deidre-downs-opens-up-about-wifes-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/first-gay-miss-america-deidre-downs-opens-up-about-wifes-pregnancy\/","title":{"rendered":"#First gay Miss America Deidre Downs opens up about wife’s pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#First gay Miss America Deidre Downs opens up about wife’s pregnancy<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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On one of their first dates, Dr. Deidre Downs \u2014 who is the first openly gay Miss America and a fertility specialist \u2014 made a bold proclamation to her now-wife, Abbott Jones. <\/p>\n

Downs \u201csort of joked that she was the only woman in Alabama who could get me pregnant,\u201d Jones, 37, told The Post. \u201cBecause of what [she] does for a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downs, Miss America 2005, followed through with her promise. In late December, Jones learned she was pregnant with the couple\u2019s first child, a girl who is due, app<\/a>ropriately, on Labor Day.<\/p>\n

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\"Downs
Downs called Miss America \u201ca great experience\u201d and said she would be happy for her daughter to do pageants one day. <\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Alabama native went to the University of Virginia on a full volleyball scholarship, but she quit the team to focus on her studies. Without her athletic funding, she entered the Miss Alabama pageant in hopes of earning scholarship money. She won in 2004, and unexpectedly found herself in the national spotlight when she was crowned Miss America that September.<\/p>\n

The former beauty queen, now 40, recounted their successful IVF journey on this week\u2019s episode of the \u201cPregnantish<\/a>\u201d podcast with Andrea Syrtash, revealing how they decided which of them would carry their first child and why she decided to come out publicly in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you went back and asked people who knew me as a child, I think they would have been shocked if you told them I was going to be Miss America,\u201d Downs told The Post. \u201cI wasn\u2019t into the girly pageant stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n

But life had a few surprises in store for Downs, who married her college sweetheart, a man, with whom she has an 11-year-old son. During her OB-GYN residency, she started to feel distant from her spouse and went to counseling, where she realized she\u2019s gay. The pair divorced and remain friends. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a while for me to come to that realization of who I am and have the courage to be that person,\u201d said Downs.<\/p>\n

She described coming out to her family, friends and colleagues as \u201coverwhelmingly positive,\u201d and that her brother\u2019s reaction was particularly funny.<\/p>\n

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\"Portrait
After winning Miss America, Downs went to medical school and eventually became a fertility specialist. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Over dinner one night, she said she had to tell him something. \u201cHe was like, \u2018You\u2019re being all serious. What are you going to tell me? Are you a lesbian or something?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Well, actually yes.\u2019 And he was like \u2018OK, cool.\u2019 He\u2019s quite dry, so it was classic.\u201d <\/p>\n

Downs met Jones, an attorney, on Match.com, but she wasn\u2019t out publicly yet, so she created a profile without photos under an alias. Jones, who was an online-dating novice on a seven-day free trial, was intrigued by their shared interests of music, restaurants and travel<\/a>. She messaged Downs.<\/p>\n

The couple, based in Birmingham, Ala., chatted online, and then Downs texted her future wife, coming clean about her real name and identity. <\/p>\n

Jones didn\u2019t respond right away. \u201cI was freaking out with my girlfriends and couldn\u2019t believe my luck, and neither could my friends, especially the ones who were online dating,\u201d Jones recalled. \u201cThey were like, \u2018I can\u2019t believe you went on for seven days and met Miss America.’\u201d <\/p>\n

The pair immedia<\/a>tely bonded over their love of Harry Potter and the Oxford comma. A year later, Downs proposed, and they were married in 2018, which served as Downs\u2019 public coming out, with a story in People magazine<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was very nervous \u2026 But I got a lot of messages of encouragement and people saying \u2018Thank you for doing this.\u2019 It was really cool,\u201d said Downs, adding that the Miss America organization was also supportive.<\/p>\n

She and Jones also wanted a family. Initially they looked at reciprocal IVF, which means both partners go through egg retrieval. However, testing showed that Downs\u2019 eggs weren\u2019t in great shape. \u201cFortunately, Abbott\u2019s were, so I have been on the sidelines,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Choosing a sperm donor took a few months. <\/p>\n

\"Deidre
Downs and Abbot Jones (right) met on Match.com, where Downs had set up a dating profile using an alias.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt becomes overwhelming, but it is entertaining. Some of the banks will give you a [donor who\u2019s a] celebrity look-alike, which was amusing,\u201d said Downs.<\/p>\n

But Jones was after only one doppelganger: her wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say when we were looking at donors,\u201d Jones said, \u201cmy goal was to find someone as close to Deidre as possible. But when you marry Miss America who is a doctor, there\u2019s not really anyone like her. So it was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, they found the right person. As an obstetrician and reproductive endocrinologist, Downs regularly performs the whole IVF process from start to finish. But her medical partner stepped in for Jones\u2019 egg retrieval, because performing such an invasive procedure on a loved one isn\u2019t considered appropriate in the medical community.<\/p>\n

Downs, however, did transfer the embryo into Jones\u2019 uterus, which is less invasive, on Dec. 18. And it appears she had the magic touch. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe got our first, very faint, pink line on the at-home pregnancy test on Dec. 23,\u201d said Jones. The couple told their families the good news<\/a> on Christmas morning over Zoom. \u201cEveryone was just jumping up and down and excited,\u201d added Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very fortunate. [Abbott] was fully prepared that it might take several tries,\u201d said Downs, who added that it\u2019s been strange to be on the patient side of IVF.<\/p>\n

Now their families are awaiting the name reveal.<\/p>\n

\"Downs
The couple announced their marriage<\/a> in People magazine, which also served as a chance for Downs to come out publicly. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSouthern grandmothers need to monogram,\u201d said Jones. <\/p>\n

Downs added that her son is very excited to be a big brother. <\/p>\n

Will she encourage her daughter to do pageants? \u201cSince I was totally not into it [as a young girl], she will probably be so into it and everything will be pink. I will be fine if she wants to do it. It was a great experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hopes that sharing their pregnancy journey resonates just as much as her coming out. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people see there are many ways to build a family \u2014 if you are gay, straight, in a relationship or not in one,\u201d said Downs. \u201cThere are many ways to make that happen.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#First gay Miss America Deidre Downs opens up about wife’s pregnancy” On one of their first dates, Dr. Deidre Downs \u2014 who is the first openly gay Miss America and a fertility specialist \u2014 made a bold proclamation to her now-wife, Abbott Jones. Downs \u201csort of joked that she was the only woman in Alabama…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":282693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/miss-america.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[110205,71955,77628,75253,80139],"class_list":["post-282692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-6-24-21","tag-ivf","tag-miss-america","tag-online-dating","tag-people-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}