Baby Bumps: From Party Girl to Proud Mama, and all the Messy Milestones Along the Way
Page 2
Soon after our discovery, I went to a club. The waitress kept pushing cocktails on me. I kept turning her down. She seemed confused. Usually, when I go to a club, I party my ass off. That was my reputation. I realized I was in a bind. If I wasn’t hammering cocktails, people would wonder why. They might come up with theories. Whenever you see a friend switch off alcohol with a sneaky smile on her face, the wheels start turning. You don’t need to be a nuclear physicist to figure that one out. I asked the waitress for a seltzer and cranberry juice, figuring that would pass for a real drink.
“You sure you don’t want vodka in that?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” I said. She gave me a strange look.
I hate secrets. Usually, I can’t keep my mouth shut. I was dying to share our news. But I had to tell my parents first. I was scared to tell them, especially my dad. My career meant a lot to him. He ran the business. BTW, my career isn’t just falling on my ass, or sitting on it, for a reality TV show. I create products for my brand—lipstick, perfume, sunglasses, etc. I also write books (you’re holding one right now) and do promotional appearances. A pregnancy threw a giant squirrel monkey wrench into it all, but mainly the TV part. Would fans of Jersey Shore want to watch me fat and sober?
Doubtful.
If my reality TV run ended because of the pregnancy, I’d be fine with it. I’d walk away in a second if I had to choose between fame and family. Dad put family first, too, of course. He always had, and always would. I worried that he’d say the timing was wrong, and that I shouldn’t have a baby until my career had fallen off.
I didn’t want to hear it, so I avoided my parents. I didn’t call them for a week, which was an eternity for us. I usually talk to Mom and Dad a few times a day. When I finally called, I said, “I have something to tell you.”
Dad said, “We already know.”
The week of black ops silence made them suspicious. Mom heard I’d been to the doctor. They knew that if I had any bad health news, I would have called them while still in the paper gown on the examining room table. If I had good news and didn’t call, they figured it had to be a pregnancy.
“But you’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” said Dad. He meant my life as a celebrity. He knew, as I did, that my so-called fame had a time limit. Opportunities flowed my way now, but they’d stop someday. I’d been smart about saving so far. Would it be enough to raise a child? Jionni always said that if my career ended, he’d step up and support us. He already had a couple of businesses—selling t-shirts and an ATM company—that were doing well. Plus, I didn’t need to live large. That was not my style, never had been. When I wasn’t traveling or shooting a show, I slept in my childhood bedroom at home.
I did get a little pissed off at Dad. He talked to me like I was 15. But I wasn’t a pregnant high school dropout. I was 24, had a career, had savings, and was in a serious relationship with a man who loved me. I’d always dreamed that one day I’d be a MILF with adorable tan babies. The surprise pregnancy just moved the dream up a couple of years.
“Dad, it’s okay. I can make my own decisions. This is what I want,” I told him.
Parents can’t help but feel anxious about their children. Dad was just worried about me and how I’d support my baby. His brain naturally flowed in that direction. The guy carted around a plastic box full of my contracts and important business papers. He just didn’t want me to struggle. To him, not struggling meant keeping my career going as long as possible to save money for later.
Mom was upset, too. She was thinking about another piece of paper: a marriage license. It was a generational thing. Of course, I wanted to get married to Jionni. We were committed and didn’t need to rush to the altar before the baby was born just for the sake of . . . what exactly? Our baby wouldn’t be loved harder because we were married. Our relationship was as secure as Fort Knox. Plus, I didn’t want to be huge and nauseous—and sober—at my own wedding! No way! My vision of our wedding had me in an amazing dress, with an open bar and a hot DJ (paging Pauly D). It’d be a raucous party, and I’d look smoking hot in all the photos. The wedding would have to wait until after the baby was born.
My parents never tried to talk me out of it. But they did question whether I was ready to be responsible for another human life. I hadn’t always been the most mature, upstanding citizen, as everyone knows. But I’d grown up a lot. In the last year, I’d more or less stopped getting wasted. I was in great physical shape. I’d been working hard and doing things I never thought I’d do, like designing flip-flops and writing novels. It’d be a stretch to say I’d magically transformed into the most mature and responsible woman on earth. But I wasn’t the same 21-year-old drunk girl who was dragged off the beach in handcuffs by the cops. Everyone knows someone who turned her life around when she had a baby. I felt like my life had already made a hard turn in the right direction. The baby would only seal the deal.
My parents and I didn’t talk for a few days after that first phone call. I didn’t want to hear any negativity. But they came around to the positive very quickly. Within a week, Mom and Dad accepted the pregnancy and started to get excited about being grandparents. Jionni’s parents were already grandparents five times over. They were thrilled to have another bambino on the way.
Next up, Jionni and I would tell our closest friends. We decided to hold off on that until we were sure the baby was healthy. The major prenatal testing to check for abnormalities happens at the twelve-week mark. Since I was already eight weeks along, we had to keep the secret for another month. That was going to be hard. We were dying to spread the news.
Despite being in my life for a while already, Jionni still wasn’t used to living in a fish bowl. He didn’t realize that a pregnancy had to be treated like a state secret. One slip of the tongue and it was out of our control. He told, like, twenty people. One of them must have told a friend, who told a friend. Suddenly, the story got leaked to the media. They were all over it the next day.
You’d think I’d committed a terrorist act by the way the press reacted. The “Is-she-or-isn’t-she?” headlines were insane. The shock and horror were ridiculous. Blogs and gossip rags came down on me hard, as if I were the first pregnant 24-year-old single woman in history. It sucked! I tried to stem the rumors by denying the pregnancy. I’m not really superstitious, but it felt wrong to say I wasn’t having a baby when I was. I worried that I was cursing the pregnancy.
I started to feel guilty, too. My friends heard about it from another source. I quickly sent an email to my core group that said, “No false alarm. It’s real.” Most of them were happy for us, but we also caught some doubt from a few with the “Are you sure?” questions. I know they were just being protective and were concerned about how the media would react. (Badly, just as they feared.)
The heat came at us from every direction. We had to lie outright to some people. I hated keeping the truth from anyone, including my fans. Besides, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, not bite my tongue. But it just wasn’t the right time. Imagine telling the world, “We’re having a baby!” and then something went wrong and I had a miscarriage. We’d have to say, “Er, never mind.” I wouldn’t want my misery played out on magazine covers.
The absolute worst was denying the pregnancy to talk show hosts on TV while promoting Jersey Shore. The rumor mill was grinding away like cage dancers at a strip club. Kelly Ripa and others tried to get me to admit the truth on their show. Andy Cohen grilled me to a crisp about it on Watch What Happens: Live. The next time I went on his show, he made me swear on a Bible I wouldn’t lie to him again. On another show, the host served Jenni Farley (aka JWOWW) and me glasses of beer. I raised the glass and let the beer touch my lips. Just a touch. I didn’t drink a drop of it. But when I put the glass to my mouth, the host went nuts, saying, “You’re not pregnant. The beer was a test!” As soon as the segment was over, I went backstage and cried. I was terrified that letting the beer touch my lips would hurt the baby. How fucked up was that of the host? She knew
I didn’t want to talk about the pregnancy rumors, so she put me on the spot and tried to force me to drink alcohol? It was beyond rude and possibly dangerous. All so she could bust me? I’ll never do her show again.
Valentine’s Day rolled around. I’ve had a few disappointing February 14ths in my life. Ugh, not fun. It’s much better when my man goes all out. Rose petals on the bed, Champagne, a stuffed teddy bear holding a heart, a singing card. I love it all. Nothing is too cheesy. On Valentine’s Day, 2012, I was twelve weeks pregnant and beyond stressed from keeping the news under lock and key.
Here’s Jionni
Even though we agreed to postpone a wedding until after the baby, I thought it was important to propose as soon as possible. I wanted Nicole to know I would be at her side. She should feel secure that I was committed. I didn’t want to get married just because of the baby. But the baby did make me want to propose. Nicole was so emotionally crazy, I hoped being engaged would give her comfort.
The plan was to surprise her. I managed to buy the ring and make a reservation at the W Hotel in Hoboken for Valentine’s Day night without her knowing. Our room had a balcony that looked over the Hudson River. I did it up right. Flowers on the floor. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Champagne. But she wasn’t into it. The flower smell gave her a headache, and she wouldn’t drink the Champagne, not even a sip. I wanted her to come out on the balcony with me to look at the view while I gave her my gift. But it was freezing, and she refused come outside. We argued on either side of the balcony door for a few minutes. I started to get really cold, so I just handed her the gift and said, “I got you something. It doesn’t fit me. I hope it fits you.”
She unwrapped the box. Inside was the ring. I didn’t think she’d turn me down, but I was nervous she might not like the style of the ring. I was bracing for her to start crying again. She’d been like an open faucet for weeks.
She put on the ring. Her chin and lip started quivering and twitching. She burst out crying in such a dramatic way, I didn’t think it was for real. I’m still standing in the freezing balcony, and she’s inside the room, blubbering.
“So . . . yes?” I asked.
She screamed, “Yes!”
I came in from the cold and wrapped her up in my arms.
The ring was awesome. A five-carat princess cut diamond. Jionni designed it with the jeweler based on comments I’d made. Throughout the pregnancy, whenever I got upset or annoyed—like a thousand times a day—I looked at the sparkler on my finger and I felt better. It was a stunner! You couldn’t not stare at it, which actually caused a problem. If we came out with the engagement news, then it’d be obvious we were pregnant. So we had another thing we wanted to tell the world, but had to keep quiet. I wore the ring, but turned it around so the stone wasn’t so obvious.
After thirteen weeks along, we did the tests and learned that the fetus was healthy and the pregnancy was stable. We made our happy announcements with the help of Us Weekly. It was such a relief! I could go shopping for baby stuff and bigger clothes without having to lie or hide.
Instantly, the jokes started, like how my baby would be the spawn of Satan, or that he’d walk right out of my over-stretched vagina. People I’d never met were saying I would be a tragic mom, that social services should be called, that my baby would have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and worse.
I didn’t like it. Who would? But I tried not to get offended. That was just the press doing their job—which was to trash my unborn baby. I’d been hearing the takedowns for four years already—decline of Western Civilization, Mayan Apocalypse, blah, blah, and blah. Some public figures totally freaked out when haters bashed them on social and traditional media. I just couldn’t get that upset. Maybe my layers of spray tan created a shield against the negativity. It just didn’t make sense to take it personally. The mean Tweeters didn’t know me personally, so how could I take it that way? As long as I knew I was going to be a great mom, everyone else could suck it.
Chapter 2
The Endless Hangover
After we got engaged, Jionni and I talked about moving into a fantasy house that was custom made for us. We’d have a gym, a movie room, six bedrooms, a pool, a man cave, a walk-in closet for me, the works. I made some calls and found out that building our dream house from the bottom up would take at least a year, if not longer. In the meantime, we decided to move into the basement at Jionni’s parents’ house in northern New Jersey and stay there for the length of the pregnancy and for a while after the birth. His family was into it. Jionni’s two brothers and sister lived within a mile of their parents. His brother’s house was literally right next door. I was definitely drawn to his coming from a big, close family. And, let’s be honest, it was a relief to know that we’d have a lot of backup when the baby came. We would need it.
I was an only child, which had its pros and cons. Growing up, everything was about me, me, and me. My parents spoiled me as best they could. I was their pride and joy, and you bet your ass I loved every second of it. But I always felt alone. I used to beg my mom to adopt another baby from Chile so I could have someone to play with. I had friends, don’t get me wrong. Companions were available. But meeting up with a kid on the block on a sunny day wasn’t the same as having a sister or brother to hang out with on rainy days when I was stuck in the house. I fantasized about what it’d be like to have a younger sibling I could guide through life and tell how to do important things like dress Barbies and manipulate our parents. (One part charm, one part begging, one part whining, plus a dash of real tears.)
I grew up watching reruns of The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family after school. Despite the mega corniness of those shows, being part of a big family looked like a lot of fun, especially getting to wear those matching ridic outfits. The kids might’ve annoyed each other. And there were a lot of fights. But they were never lonely, never bored. They backed each other up when it mattered. Only siblings can truly appreciate their parents’ quirks. Besides parents, only siblings grow up alongside you. You share memories and experiences. It’s a unique relationship. My parents gave me everything, and I love them to death for it. But I missed having that brother or sister connection. I think that’s why I wanted to have a lot of kids myself. My children would get what I never got to have. It’s always go big or go home with me. Even though I didn’t know much about living in a big family, I thought, Fuck it, I want The Brady Bunch.
Our housing situation settled, I had to go to work. That winter, I moved into a converted firehouse apartment in Jersey City to film Snooki & JWOWW Season One. Much as I loved my Booboo and was happy that MTV gave Jenni and me a spin-off, I couldn’t get into filming. All I wanted was to be back home and sob hormonally on Jionni’s shoulder. It was freezing that winter, and my pregnancy padding wasn’t going to keep me warm like my new fiancé. Plus, disgusting pregnancy symptoms had kicked in.
The first to hit was sheer exhaustion. I had to force myself to get out of bed every day. My head was foggy, like I’d just woken up from a coma. The only thing that kept me awake was unrelenting queasiness. I was fortunate not to puke my guts up every five minutes like some pregnant ladies. I had the sick stomach, minus the relief of vomiting. I lived on the verge of it, though. When I ran to the bathroom, I leaned over, but nothing came up. I’d punch the bowl in frustration: “Screw you, toilet!” Cursing at plumbing: A side effect of pregnancy you don’t hear about.
Tired, nauseated, foggy. I’d had that cruel combo before. It felt just like a wicked hangover with an Ambien drip. I stopped drinking, yet had the worst hangover of my life with no sign of it letting up? The irony wasn’t lost on me. I was so not laughing about it.
Morning sickness? Try morning, afternoon, and evening sickness in a grinding cement mixer with intense hunger pains. At dinnertime, I was torn between the urge to yak, or to eat a yak. My mouth was perpetually full of saliva from thinking about food, or full of that acidy pre-puke drool.
In this hangover-y horror, I had cameras in my face 24/7.
I’ve got to give the producers credit for rolling with the punches. We all had to adjust to the sudden change. So, logically, the show would be about that adjustment. It’s reality, after all.
On the very first episode, I told Jenni what was going on, saying, “I’m engaged.” I started with that to get one shocker out the way before I let loose the even bigger news.
Her reaction was, “No, you’re not. That ring isn’t real.” She was pissed off that I got engaged before her, even though she was five years older than me. She thought of me like a little sister. Little sisters don’t get engaged first.