Open Book

by Jessica Simpson

I called my doctor right away, and they were scared at first because they said I was at high risk for a tubal pregnancy. They wanted me to see a specialist immediately at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. When we left the gate, we had ten cars of paparazzi following us. There was no way we could get to the hospital without putting an even bigger target on my back. Anytime a female celebrity goes to a hospital, it’s like sending up a flare that paparazzi should be on high alert for a pregnancy. We were already being more cautious about protecting what we prayed would be a healthy, happy baby, so Daisy Duke’s evasive driving maneuvers were no longer going to fly. We turned around, and my heart sank.

  We made another appointment for exactly twenty-four hours later. We’d have time to do planning with rental cars and hiding in backseats. Another trick was to leave a rental car waiting in a paid parking garage, then drive out in a different car. We would do whatever we had to do.

  But, more important, we prayed over my belly for that twenty-four hours. The prayers amounted to one word: Stay.

  “IN ALL MY YEARS OF PRACTICE, I’VE ONLY SEEN THIS ONCE,” THE SPECIALIST said as she walked in the office. The egg traveled from the ovary on the right side of my body to use my one fallopian tube on the left. “It’s a miracle,” she added.

  Since that word came from a doctor, I decided “miracle” was a technical term, and I carry it with me still. And that pregnancy felt like a miracle. I loved every minute of it. I would get headaches, but never felt morning sickness. Within two weeks, Eric and I already had names picked out for a boy or a girl. I am sentimental, so the names needed to come from family. If we had that baby girl, we wanted a combination of our mothers’ maiden names to honor them, Maxwell Drew. For a boy, Ace Knute—our grandfathers’ names—would be perfect. We found out early that we were having a girl, and I was thrilled. My wish had come true. When I was pregnant with Maxwell, every sad thing in my life was forgotten or put into a healthy perspective. I know that was so much to put on her, but I couldn’t help it. She saved me from all the worries, all the overthinking, all the dwelling on the past.

  That’s why I had absolutely no problem stopping drinking during my pregnancy. I was able to turn inward instead of doing my usual escaping. I didn’t want to look outward, because I was just so astonished by what my body was capable of. Creating life allowed me to awaken my spirit.

  We decided to put off the wedding to focus on the pregnancy. We wanted to keep it our secret for a while, but there was no hiding her from the media. Pretty early on, she wanted to be seen, and I had a bump I couldn’t hide. For weeks people guessed, and Eric and I decided to end the speculation by announcing the pregnancy on Halloween. I posed for a photo dressed as a mummy, old-school with the white bandages tight over everything but my face and hair. I posted the shot of me cradling my stomach with the caption, “It’s true—I’m going to be a mummy.”

  When I was four months, I felt Maxwell kick for the first time. I was like, Whoa! Something is really in there. It was the weirdest and most amazing feeling. My little girl was already clear about what she wanted: a combination of salty and sweet. I craved cantaloupe, but with salt all over it. Then I went through a stage of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, toasted. I would put salt on my hand like I was taking a tequila shot, take a bite of my sandwich, then a lick. I ate what my body told me and would gain about sixty pounds. But I wasn’t worried, because I had been approached by Weight Watchers to be an ambassador when the time came to lose the pregnancy weight. I liked their message of self-empowerment, and I knew how good I was at following directions. If you tell me how to do something, I’ll do it.

  Whenever I did an interview during my pregnancy, I was asked how I was adjusting to putting on weight. The interviewer would “helpfully” tell me people were commenting about my weight, even though, duh, I was pregnant. “Are you held to a higher standard because you were a sex symbol?” a male reporter asked me on a morning show.

  “I think I still am a sex symbol,” I answered. “I know to my husband I still am.” I was just so confused by the “were.” Excuse me? And what I said was absolutely true. During my first pregnancy, I was finally fully in my body, and I felt sexy to a point that I wanted to have sex four times a day.

  Maternity clothes were not fun for me, so I put them off as long as possible. I lived in Eric’s sweatshirts, and if I had to do an event, I’d throw a jacket on a stretched-out designer dress. I joked that I was going to give birth in my YSL heels. I noticed that I could find maternity clothes that were either comfortable or cute, but never both.

  “Mom, we’re just gonna have to do this ourselves,” I said. And so, the idea for the Jessica Simpson maternity line was conceived. I was so proud of how my mother had grown the business, and how the business had become such a family affair. My sister, Ashlee, even pitched in to do a campaign shoot while I was pregnant. The Collection has always reflected the stages of my life, and for this I have my mother to thank. I was able to publicly do so at my baby shower, telling her how I hoped to be half as good a mother as she was to me. Everything I had was because of her faith and love.

  I didn’t know our lives were about to completely change, and not because of Maxwell. In late April, three weeks before my mid-May due date, I was in the hospital to monitor the baby. Because of her size, my doctors wanted to schedule a caesarean section two weeks before my due date. I was scared.

  And that’s when my dad chose to tell me he was planning to leave my mother. He thanked me for showing him the way—leaving a life in which I felt trapped and finding the one I was meant to have. They were fighting all the time, her nitpicking everything he said.

  I was completely blindsided, as I knew my mother would be. I take on the problems of my friends and family, and now I was burdened with this secret that I felt responsible for. Of course, my mother knew there were problems in her marriage, but this was all she had ever known. For my survival, and my daughter’s protection, I buried this news. I refused to deal with it and instead focused on welcoming Maxwell. I have perspective now. Or at least the hope of perspective. I know people shouldn’t be miserable, but my father’s timing added a layer of terrible sadness to what had been a joyous time. For a long time, I harbored a lot of resentment about the way he told me the family I knew was over.

  The night before the scheduled May 1 C-section, Eric packed a record player and a selection of his old Bob Marley records to play at the hospital. I, of course, had to have my Roberto Cavalli caftan, which I had taken to wearing all the time, flowing about like some Stevie Nicks earth mother. They were right about her size: Maxwell entered the world on May 1 at nine pounds, thirteen ounces. My miracle baby. When I held her for the first time, I couldn’t believe my luck. Eric and I stared at her, knowing we had been given the truest, most precious purpose of life.

  When we got home, our lives revolved around Maxwell. We’d place Maxwell in a bassinet, and we’d sit outside in a shady spot by the fountain. We barely went out, preferring the world come to us. Eric took to fatherhood as his calling. He could feel that Maxwell didn’t like to be bounced, just held in stillness. He’s so strong, so just one of those hands that were so famous at Yale could hold Maxwell while doing QiGong or gently walking around the yard.

  We hired a night nurse, Ann Marie, to come from 7 p.m. to 9 a.m.—this perfect English nanny who we peppered with questions all night. It was so odd, this feeling that someone who has been part of you for nine months is now next to you in a bassinet. We got up with the night nurse, and we’d all watch old movies together, so even with the benefit of a nurse, I was sleep-deprived. I would google the weirdest stuff in the middle of the night. Suddenly the lightest rash was “Should we call the doctor?” To avoid creating even more anxiety, I started night-shopping. The things I would order. Maxwell had like ten different bathtubs because I would either forget I bought one or, ooh, this one has a scale!

  We stuck to a schedule like gospel, but breastfeeding didn’t come easily to me. Not enough people talk a
bout how tough it is, so hear it from me: it’s okay if it doesn’t come naturally to you either. There’s enough pressure keeping this perfect little creature alive. Just do the best you can, whatever your best is. For me, breastfeeding was a time to pray over her and connect with her. You can do that while you’re giving your baby a bottle, too.

  Carol Vanderslice, my old Sunday school teacher, came to help me. I sometimes measured my mothering skills by how much she smiled while looking at me. I loved having her there. Eric and I were fortunate to have help and be there for every first. Those first months, there was so much magic happening in our home that I had a beautiful distraction from my parents and their drama. In August, my mother discovered that my father had betrayed their marriage, just as she and I thought things were turning around for them. She had just told me what a nice time they had together on their anniversary, and she thought maybe they had turned a corner. I thought so, too. When she confronted him, my dad began calling me, and I would not pick up. One time he called while I was in my closet, looking to see what I could fit into. Maxwell was in the bassinet next to me. I watched the phone ring until it mercifully stopped. I sighed. A minute later, Eric was there.

  “Jessica, your dad’s here,” he said. No, he’s not, I thought. He just called. He is far, far away.

  “What do you mean ‘Your dad’s here?’ ” I said. “What’s he gonna say to me?” He had called from out front. I still thought I could hide. I looked at my baby. “Okay, Maxwell, it’s you and me, kid.”

  But suddenly my dad was there, spouting in full denial mode. After all those times he’d flirted with the idea of rescuing himself, he couldn’t do it. “I’m not with anybody else,” he said. “I love your mother.”

  My anxiety made me freeze. I turned words over and over in my mind, trying to find just the right ones to express my pain.

  He said he didn’t want to hurt me, and that’s when Eric stepped in. He said something like, “Each time you deny your own truth, something intense happens. You have to listen to the signs and take care of it yourself. Jess has no extra energy to give to you right now.” I could tell that got through to my dad. It was the type of thing he might have counseled someone back in Richardson.

  My parents filed for divorce that August. Dad moved on quickly, and maybe he’d planned it so long that he had a running start ahead of my mother. He tends to have conversations with himself for so long, and then he suddenly talks about something as if we’re all supposed to be up to speed. He starts in the middle, and it can make people—well, my mom—feel lost. So, I admit, I took care of my mother. In many ways, she had lost her best friend. She was twenty when she got married. She was the youngest child, and he gave her the world. She’s said that he didn’t just give her identity, Joe Simpson was her identity. He took her out of her comfort zone. He helped her be adventurous, to see the world. Her everything had become nothing.

  My mom had a hard time with Ashlee and me even seeing our father, and I was incapable of not telling my mother when I’d spent time with Dad. So, for a long time, this daddy’s girl stopped seeing him. I told him I loved him, but it was easier this way. Strong Ashlee was the one who stepped up, refusing to limit herself. She and our father formed a new relationship. I am proud of her.

  Sadly, this is when I had to fire my father, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The worst part was that I had do it five times because he would not accept it. Too often I was circling back to people, only to find that Dad had made some move without telling me. People agreed to bad terms, thinking that was what I had demanded when, really, I had no idea. It left a lot of hurt feelings I didn’t know existed, and I knew I had to make the move to go forward with ownership of my own career.

  I did one thing to make sure my dad knew I loved him. His father had always sat in a big leather recliner. My grandfather loved that chair, and I loved to sit by it and tickle his toes to make him laugh. Dad always wanted one, but my mom’s interior-designer instincts wouldn’t allow it. “I am not putting a leather recliner in our house,” she’d say. I bought him one. Now he could do what he wanted.

  While I chose to see my mother over my father, I also felt the lightest barrier forming between her and me. It was self-protection. She was hurting, and someone who’s read as many self-help books as I have knows, hurt people hurt people. She would say something cutting to me, and I would later turn it over in my head like a puzzle. It took me a long time to realize that when she did that, it was because she didn’t like herself in that moment. She didn’t want to make me cry, she only wanted to take me to the same dark place where she was.

  But that took a while for me to figure out. In the meantime, I focused on my little family of three. Creating my own family within that loss was a beautiful thing. And I was about to be blessed again.

  24

  Let’s Go Dancing in the Light

  October 2012

  Of course, I turned my Weight Watchers meetings into parties. They sent me this great mentor, Liz Josefsberg, to make the plan for me, and I shared it with all my girlfriends. There was something celebratory about our weekly weigh-ins, not punishing. I was on fire, losing three and half pounds a week, and on a serious health kick.

  And yet, I felt off. We had our normal gathering for Halloween, and I felt so nauseous. I had given up breastfeeding, thinking it would make me feel better, but now I felt awful. I flashed on a recent time when Eric and I had made love, and how we looked at each other and I said, “I think we just made a baby.” But no, Maxwell was only four months old . . .

  I went to the downstairs bathroom, where I still had my stash of pregnancy tests.

  Pregnant.

  Eric was upstairs in our bedroom and Maxwell was napping. Again, I raced up the steps, but this time I wasn’t screaming because the only thing bigger than a mom’s need to yell is her baby’s need to sleep. I was shaking when I showed Eric the test. Of course, we were thrilled, but it was such a shock. Again, I got pregnant on a month where the egg had to cross over to my left fallopian tube.

  Immediately, I went into mom-of-two mode. “Well, this house is too small,” I said. “Where are we gonna put this baby?” It was heartbreaking to realize we had to leave our house, because it was so special. The place where I’d found my forever. But my real forever was Eric, Maxwell, and now this little person, who I was suddenly very worried about. I knew I had to see the specialist right away again to rule out a tubal pregnancy. She was shocked that my eggs had pulled off this trick a second time.

  “I think it was some really powerful sex,” I said. “Eric must have meditated right before.”

  We delayed our wedding a second time, this time tabling the whole plan. Our only concern, once we knew our next child was healthy, was focusing on Maxwell. We wanted to spend as much alone time with Maxwell before she had to share our attention with another baby in the house. When we told friends, some people—okay, a lot of people—were like, “Oh my gosh, are you gonna do this? Back to back?”

  “Well, we don’t have a choice, you know,” I’d answer. “We’re gonna do this and they’re gonna be best friends.” When we found out we were having a boy, we were thrilled. We already had that perfect name, Ace Knute.

  Now I needed to stop throwing up. I had morning sickness, but for me, it was also afternoon and night sickness. The day would slowly edge into misery. I wondered if it was karma for all the interviews I’d done talking about how blissful pregnancy was. Maybe because it was a boy, my hormones responded completely differently this time around. Isn’t that the old wives’ tale?

  In a move that will go down in history as not one of our better ones, we booked a three-week trip to Hawaii for the end of December and beginning of January. We announced the pregnancy on my social media, this time with a Christmas photo of Maxwell on the beach with “Big Sis” written in a heart in the sand in front of her. I also had to announce that I was stopping the Weight Watchers diet but would return to it as soon as I could.

  We h
ad three waves of family and friends coming to visit the house in Hawaii. It was rainy, and I spent most of the trip in the theater room of the house we rented, Eric joking that as people came to visit, I became more and more like Howard Hughes. The hermit tycoon hiding in the dark room, only rubbing her belly.

  Right before we left for the trip, we fell in love with Ozzy Osbourne’s house, which was for sale in Hidden Hills, so we spent much of the trip sealing up the details with our realtor. I had always liked Hidden Hills when I’d lived nearby in Calabasas. Ozzy also had his own studio in the house, and I thought it was just perfect for our family—once I redecorated, of course.

  That spring was about transitioning to the new house, with Willie Nelson and Neil Young albums as the soundtrack to our lives. I even had a tapestry embroidered to hang over Ace’s crib with a verse from “Harvest Moon,” one of my favorite Neil Young songs.

  When June 30, the day of his C-section arrived, they asked me in the OR what kind of music I’d like to have playing. Oh, I should play Neil Young, I thought. Ace would recognize that music from hearing it so much at home. But I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “Neil Diamond,” I said.

  The nurse paused. “Like ‘Sweet Caroline?’ ”

  “Oh gosh, no no no no,” I said. “Neil Young. ‘Harvest Moon.’

  He was seven pounds, four ounces, a little guy in comparison to his big sister. We took him home to our new house, and again Eric rose to the occasion. Maxwell, who was about fourteen months, started pretending to diaper her dolls to be like mommy and daddy.

  When you have a second child, you wonder if your heart will divide to accommodate another child, but it just expands and gets bigger. Each time I put them to bed, there was a feeling of gratitude. I couldn’t believe they were all mine, and I had made these perfect beings with my best friend.

  I held on to that gratitude, sometimes gripped it tightly to withstand a sudden, unexpected wave of anxiety. I’d been pregnant back-to-back for two years, and now I was no longer able to turn inward in a positive way. I felt overwhelmed by the return of my old demons. I am wired to stay awake until everything is complete, and when you have two kids under two, there is always something to worry over. I have more sympathy for myself now than I did then, which I know is the story of a lot of women’s lives. We are kind in hindsight.