Country Singer Mickey Guyton Expecting First Child: 'My Life Completely Changed in an Instant'

"I'm so excited and terrified all at the same time," Mickey Guyton captioned her Tuesday pregnancy announcement, in part

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Published on August 25, 2020 03:25 PM

Mickey Guyton's got something new on the horizon to sing about: motherhood!

The country singer is expecting her first child with her husband, attorney Grant Savoy, she announced in a heartfelt Instagram post on Tuesday.

Sharing a set of her baby on the way's ultrasound photos, Guyton began her caption, "Even in times of darkness, like the ones we as a society find ourselves in today, God always finds a way to shine His light on the beautiful side of life, like the miracle of life itself."

"I'm so excited to announce that I'm having a baby! My life completely changed in an instant. Literally nothing else matters," added the "Black Like Me" singer, 37. "I'm so excited and terrified all at the same time. I have no idea what I am doing but am so thankful that God chose me to be this baby's mom 😭👶🏽🤰🏾"

Guyton also posted a baby bump selfie to her Instagram Story, writing over the top, "God sent me an angel in these dark times and I am beyond grateful and terrified and all of the things."

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Guyton and Savoy tied the knot after seven years together in June 2017, during an intimate ceremony at the Kauai Marriott Resort in Kauai, Hawaii, her rep confirmed to PEOPLE exclusively at the time.

"Having a big wedding is really not my thing, so when my family decided on a vacation to Kauai, I thought, 'Why not let it be a family-vacation-turned-wedding?' " Guyton told PEOPLE at the time.

"We got married in front of 23 family and friends on the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous! My husband has family from Kauai so it was important to him to have a luau at the wedding reception," she continued. "The entire day was so beautiful and intimate with lots of laughs and tears."

The only Black female country artist signed to a major label, Guyton opened up to PEOPLE this past June about the inspiration behind her song "Black Like Me" — a "healing song" for the singer that includes the lyrics, "Someday we'll all be free / and I'm proud to be Black like me."

Guyton actually has been doing a lot of healing over the past couple of years as she has questioned whether there is even a place for her in country music. Though the genre's roots run deep in Black history — emerging in the early 1900s out of a mingling of slave and immigrant music — white artists have long dominated, with rare exceptions.

54th Academy Of Country Music Awards - Arrivals — Mickey Guyton. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

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Guyton hoped to be one of them when she signed with her label in 2011, but once she joined a pool of white female artists already scrapping for radio play, she quickly felt pressure to fit into a certain mold. That included pressure, she said, to not be Black.

"I wanted to prove that I was country," she said, "and prove that I could be in this space of people that I don't look like, and that they would feel comfortable and they wouldn't see that I was Black, but just saw that I was a great country singer. And doing that, I lost who I was, to be honest. And it took a long time for me to find myself."

A turning point in her career arrived about two years ago, when she and her husband underwent marriage counseling. "I started looking at myself as an artist, and what exactly did I have to offer?" she recalled. "I started thinking, what can I write and sing about that's true to me? So I started just singing everything about my marriage."

Another turning point came when she asked Savoy why he thought her music wasn't connecting. His response, she told PEOPLE, was immediate: " 'Because you're running away from everything that makes you different.' "

"After he told me that," Guyton said, "I was, like, 'Oh my God. Okay, well, I need to just write about being a Black woman. That's my story.' "