‘Is that a baby bump?!’: Conducting qualitative research with a marginalized population while pregnant

This article explores the effects of researcher pregnancy on conducting research with individuals experiencing homelessness. Using a critical reflexive approach and the existing limited research on pregnancy and fieldwork, experiences from a multi-city project using focus groups are presented. Excerpts from fieldnotes and reflections show that pregnancy has significant effects on the researcher and impacts research-participant interactions. Pregnancy can also lead to reflections of intersectionality and the interactions between faces of the researcher's identities. The researcher's visible pregnancy often helped build rapport and led to personal conversations that left participants feeling more comfortable. Positionality is key to understanding the effects of the researcher on research processes, and the discussion highlights the effects of pregnancy on these complex relationships.