Shane and Hannah Burcaw announced their first pregnancy on Instagram Tuesday.
The interabled couple, who wed in September 2020, revealed that Hannah, 20 weeks along, is due in January. Their joint post to one million followers marked the end of a private period they had spent shielding from public view.
“We are beyond ecstatic to announce that we’re expecting our first child this coming January!” they wrote on the platform. “Hannah is 20 weeks pregnant and although we’ve been thoroughly enjoying this special time in privacy so far, we’ve also missed sharing all the joy with you, and there’s so much to share.”
The YouTubers, who host the weekly podcast Junkyard Mayhem on their Squirmy and Grubs channel, added that both are “doing great.” They also extended a deliberate note of empathy to followers navigating infertility, drawing from their own prolonged struggle.
“After going through IVF unsuccessfully for many years, we understand all too well the difficulties that many people experience when trying to conceive, and how seeing announcements can feel,” the couple wrote on Instagram.
Their path to this announcement involved repeated failed attempts to fertilize eggs during a year-long IVF process that tested their resolve before this success.
The pregnancy revelation arrives after years of the couple documenting their interabled relationship, one that has drawn persistent public skepticism and outright hostility. Shane lives with spinal muscular atrophy, a severe muscle-wasting disease, and relies on a wheelchair; Hannah is able-bodied. Their dynamic has made them targets of recurring speculation about whether their partnership is physically possible.
Shane previously addressed the assumptions head-on in their content. “We’re seen as asexual beings,” he said in one exchange, to which Hannah pressed for the reasoning.
“Well that,” Shane continued, “and they see my attraction, my ability to attract a partner as non-existent.”
“And even if you did, it wouldn’t work,” Hannah added. “There’s no physical way – because we get a lot of like, ‘there’s no physical way that they could, so they’re lying.'”
The scrutiny has extended into darker territory. Hannah has faced accusations labeling her a “pedophile” based on Shane’s smaller physical stature resulting from his condition.
“Like, because [Shane’s] smaller, like there’s no way – that should be illegal. And I often see comments that are like, if the roles, the genders were reversed, this would be illegal, meaning a disabled woman and a non-disabled man, that would be illegal,” she shared previously.
She continued: “It’s just wild to me that people think that disabled people can’t consent to intimacy and I think that kind of policing happens a lot more with mental disabilities but it also does happen with physical disabilities.”
Shane, author of Strangers Assume My Girlfriend is My Nurse, has pushed back against the desexualization of disabled people in their content. “This is going to sound silly, but disabled people can have sex,” he stated. “They can be amazing romantic partners. They can be really good at sex. We are just as sexual as our non-disabled counterparts.”
The couple first began posting to demystify interabled partnership, initially unaware how intensely audiences would fixate on their intimate life. Their channel name, Squirmy and Grubs, has become a recognizable brand in disability advocacy spaces, with their podcast expanding their reach beyond video content.
Their following has grown substantially since those early days, with the pair now counting one million Instagram followers among their platforms. The pregnancy represents a new chapter in their documented life together, one they have signaled they intend to share after this period of initial privacy.
The couple’s January due date will bring their first child into a family structure they have spent years publicly defending and explaining.