I loved being pregnant, but I hated hiding it (especially when it meant feeling like a walking furnace). The longer I waited, the more I wanted to tell people. I wanted to wear a tank top, have my belly show, and be proud. I wanted to share my good news. It was joyful. Hiding it made me feel like my life was not my own. But as the magazines began to speculate about whether I was pregnant (“Is she or isn’t she?”), keeping it a secret started to be about more than timing the announcement for the book. It was about my privacy. I started to feel that choosing how, where, and when the news came out was the way to make my life my own again.
So little in my life is private. The press quickly reveals whatever we don’t disclose in the reality show. The pregnancy became the one thing that I could hold on to and have for just me, Dean, and the close friends we told. I wanted to tell people when I wanted to tell them, instead of having Access Hollywood suspect and confirm it. Why should they or any other news magazine get to choose when and how to announce something so intimate? It was so weird to have those magazines calling to say, “Can you just confirm your pregnancy so we can tell everyone already?” Um, no!
“Come on, lady. It was ninety degrees yesterday and you were wearing a friggin’ cashmere coat.” Sorry, no!
As the book’s publication date approached, my cute little belly was not so cute and little anymore. The buttons on my beloved cashmere coat were starting to pop. I sent photos of my belly to my publicists with an email saying, “I don’t think we can hide this anymore!” Finally, my “team” agreed that I would confirm my pregnancy on the cover of People magazine, and there would be a book excerpt in the same issue. I was five and a half months pregnant. It was about time. I’d lost the baby weight for the weeklies. I’d hidden the pregnancy from the media. Now, no more contortions. I had a reprieve to be a pregnant mom, as is.
Round Two, Round Again
My pregnancy was public, and public fodder. Being pregnant on TV was a little hard at first. I was on a reality show, which sometimes meant that when I came downstairs in the morning, I’d walk right into a scene. I came from a background in scripted TV, where not only do they work on your hair and makeup for hours, but they carefully light every single scene and pick flattering angles so everybody looks perfect. There are no real surprises in a scripted show. On our show I often had no makeup on, and I’m far from a professional hairstylist. I just had to accept that I couldn’t predict what was going to happen and that I was going to look like crap at times.
Hair and makeup aside, sometimes I felt absolutely gigantic. When I was getting my ultrasound—talk about unflattering!—I had at least three chins. Seriously. I think my neck was carrying a baby too. I was horrified when I saw myself on the footage. But I got over it pretty quickly. I figured, if I’m going to show the real me, people won’t expect me to look perfect. In a scripted show if you don’t look good, that’s a legitimate problem, a violation of the viewer’s expectation. But everybody knows that people don’t look perfect in real life. Maybe it’s even a good message—a nice contrast to the perfectly lit, professionally styled actors you see on scripted shows. At any rate, I got used to this new standard pretty quickly, and after that it was a relief to feel like I didn’t have to look like some TV-manipulated version of myself. I could just be.
My attitude wasn’t always this casual. During my first pregnancy I worried about what might happen to my body. In Mommywood, every mother’s obligation is to make herself look as hot as possible through all stages of being pregnant and raising babies. I went into my first pregnancy worried about stretch marks. But then I discovered fabulous belly creams! I became obsessed with belly creams and slathered them on every day. I figured if I used them, I’d be fine, and I was. Phew.
Also with Liam, I wasn’t prepared for losing sight of my lower region. Nobody tells you that’s going to happen. I’d say, “Dean, how’s it looking down there? Do I need to shave?” But of course I couldn’t shave. So Dean had to shave me. He’d hold up a mirror and say, “See? How’d I do?” Or he’d take a picture with his BlackBerry to show me. Definitely never thought that would happen. It brought my then-new husband and me to a new level of intimacy—one that we figured was good preparation for childbirth.
Now, for the second pregnancy, I knew what to expect. I thought I’d be a little savvier when it came to the stretch marks. I did a little research. It turns out that there is no scientific evidence that belly creams work. They don’t really do anything. If you look closely, some of them even say that they reduce the “appearance” of stretch marks. So they’re, like, cover-up? So much for the belly creams. Ridiculous. I’d like to say I said “Screw it” and dumped the belly creams. But, oh, that Internet. It had more to say. The web told me that stretch marks are hereditary. Uh-oh. My mom had stretch marks! The fact I hadn’t gotten them the first time didn’t mean I was in the clear.
The web was telling me that there was nothing I could do to ward off permanent stretch marks. I had to just wait and see. I was feeling more relaxed about my pregnant body, but that didn’t mean I was ready to adopt a wait-and-see attitude when it came to having permanent red lines wiggling along my hips. So I made an executive/superstitious decision that there had to be a reason for the belly creams. They couldn’t just exist because someone was capitalizing on the vanity of pregnant women, could they? Oh, what the hell—I decided to use them anyway.
I lined up six different jars of belly cream on my bathroom shelf. Each one made different claims and had different compelling ingredients: shea butter, lavender, avocado, grapefruit seed extracts, marshmallow root. Gotu Kola extract, Vegolatum, TriLASTIN. Every night I’d dip into each one of them, one after the other, and ritualistically rub the cream into my belly. I must have smelled like a New Age salad bar. But I couldn’t give up a single cream, because what if there was only one that really did work? There was no way of knowing which one it might be, and I wasn’t taking any chances. Yes, I told Dean, women are full of contradictions. Being seen with triple chins on national television: no problem. Permanent stretch marks: unacceptable.
Sometimes Dean would try to help with the elaborate belly cream ritual. He’d do a nice, calming application, taking his time, dipping into each jar, but he never quite got it right. He’d take too long or apply too thin a layer. I’d say, “That was great, thanks,” and then as soon as he walked out of the bathroom, I’d dip, dip, dip, and slather it on. Now, it happens that I didn’t end up with any stretch marks, after either pregnancy, but I doubt it had anything to do with the belly creams. Nonetheless, I am pleased to report that I had the softest belly ever. Those belly creams—we should slather them all over our entire bodies every day. My pregnant belly was like butter. (I vowed to maintain it, but of course once the baby was born I never slathered again.)
I felt so much more comfortable being pregnant the second time around that I was willing to take pictures—in my bikini. I agreed to do a poolside pregnant-in-bikini photo shoot that appeared in Life & Style magazine. After that photo shoot was published, magazines kept asking me why I did it. “What made you decide to pose in your bikini?” or “Did you struggle over that bikini photo shoot?” I heard those questions time after time. I started to notice that it was only the female interviewers who asked about the bikini photos. The male interviewers never asked about them or about my weight. For whatever reason, the women were much more interested in the “body” story.
The truth is that I didn’t think twice about it at the time. I love the way women look when they’re pregnant. I thought I looked good. I especially loved my boobs. Pregnant boobs are the best, although I couldn’t help wishing I had them with a flat belly. The point is, I felt great and I was happy. Why shouldn’t I want pictures taken?
One person was particularly vocal about the pregnant bikini shots. It was—to my surprise—the stand-up comedienne and late-night host Chelsea Handler. I met Chelsea when I was working on my show So NoTORIous. My writers said they knew the perfect person to play my be
st friend, Janey, so I went to see her stand-up act. I thought she was hysterical. She came in to read for Janey, and we liked her. I supported her when we brought her to the network, but it didn’t work out. Still, I thought she was totally cool, and I thought of us as friends. Not call-each-other-on-the-phone friends, but, you know, people who had met a few times and felt friendly toward each other. In other words, “best friends,” in Hollywood lingo.
When I heard Chelsea had her own show, I was psyched for her, so I made a point to watch it. The first night I turned it on, there she was, blasting me. She doesn’t just hate me. She obsessively hates me. I’m a running joke on her show. When the bikini shots came out she said on the air, “So I promised I wasn’t going to slam Tori Spelling anymore because we have the same publisher, but I just can’t help myself.” She held up the magazine, opened to photos of me. “We just don’t want to see this.” Here I thought I was sending a positive message to women that being pregnant is beautiful and we should be proud of our bodies. Of course, Chelsea had an important message too: after comparing a person to Seabiscuit for a while, you should shift and say she looks bad pregnant, just to keep it fresh. Got that, everyone?
On one hand, I guess she’s using me as the butt of her jokes because she knows the public is interested. That means I’m noteworthy. Or infamous. I’m used to that. On the other hand, I really did think we were friends. I don’t know what’s more Hollywood—that she’s busting on a friendly acquaintance for cheap laughs, or that I thought we were actually friends in the first place. Producers from Chelsea Lately actually called a couple of times to ask if I would be on the show. Why would I be on the show when she’s so mean to me? Maybe that’s the most Hollywood aspect of it all—that I would come on a show after being treated like that, no hard feelings, because it’s just entertainment. It’s not real. And besides, I’m supposed to want the exposure that being on the show of someone who hates me would generate.
Even at home my pregnancy wasn’t my own to enjoy or suffer. Both my real husband and my gay husband claim to have gained baby weight when I was pregnant. The first time—with Liam—Dean ate whatever I ate just to keep me company. If I was craving McDonald’s, he ran out to get McDonald’s for both of us. If I wanted dip made from a packet of Lipton’s onion soup with Ruffles potato chips, Dean wanted onion dip with Ruffles. Mehran, my gay husband, took this reaction to another extreme. When I was four months pregnant, Dean went to Canada to visit Jack. Mehran was staying with me, as he always did. I woke up at three in the morning to discover that Mehran’s side of the bed was empty. I went downstairs to investigate and found him alone in the dark kitchen, wreaking havoc on a bag of Doritos. He had a midnight craving. Mehran claims that as soon as I was pregnant, he was absolutely ravenous for nine months.
Pregnancy is the world’s greatest excuse for decadent consumption. During my first pregnancy I went crazy with the food. Brownie bites, old-fashioned glazed doughnuts, microwave mac and cheese—you name it. But then I found my true craving. Dean fixed me a bowl of rocky road ice cream. Aha! After that Dean fixed me a bowl every single night. I’d always been skinny, so I didn’t worry about how much I was gaining. I was sure it would come right off after I had the baby. But it hadn’t been as easy as I thought it would be. There was way too much exercise and not-drinking-wine for my taste. If possible, I didn’t want to go through that again. So during the second pregnancy I was trying to be more mindful of what I was eating. I mean, I still wanted carbs all day long, but I tried not to eat so terribly.
Then, two months into the pregnancy, Dean asked, “Aren’t you craving rocky road?” Well, now that he mentioned it, I was. Thanks a lot. I told Dean not to buy the ice cream, but the next day he brought it home anyway. Surprise! He started bringing me a generous bowl every night. I had to eat it: I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
That was bad enough. Then one morning, Dean asked, “What do you want for breakfast?” and while I was thinking it over, he said it. Those fatal words. “How about some rocky road?” The world stopped. It’s like my eyes were opened for the first time. Rocky road for breakfast! Of course! Whoever said one bowl a day was the limit? It never would have occurred to me, but here was the man I loved, suggesting it as if it were a perfectly reasonable way to start the day. Who could say no to that?
Minutes later there I was, happily spooning ice cream into my mouth. I looked over at Dean. He was enjoying the same breakfast. Out of solidarity. Before long Dean was offering me rocky road ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My thoughtful husband. Then suddenly it dawned on me. Dean always fixed two bowls of ice cream. He ate it every time I did. This wasn’t a sacrifice out of solidarity. Dean was the one who wanted rocky road back in our lives. Dean was the one who wanted ice cream for breakfast! This was all his fault! And yet I knew I’d get blamed for it after the baby was born. Both Dean and Mehran complain about the weight they gained during my pregnancies. Dean says, “I’m still trying to lose the twenty-five pounds of baby weight.” Mehran likes to observe, “I gained more with the second.” And here I thought the pregnancy was one thing I could call my own.
The Family Curse
Now remember, Dean and I were sure I was pregnant with another baby boy. Dean had already fathered two boys. But also during season two of Tori & Dean, before I was pregnant, I’d brought Dean to visit Mama Lola, the voodoo high priestess who once cleansed me from a curse. Mama Lola said, “You’re going to have more babies.” Liam was only four months old. I said, “How many do you see?” She said, “Three.” Dean and I smiled at each other. That was what we had been thinking. Then I said, “I’d love to have a girl.” Mama Lola looked down at the cards and studied them for a moment. When she looked up she said, “Well, you want a girl but what if you have all boys?” That seemed to settle it. Baby number two would be a boy.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to have a baby girl, but my relationship with my mother—have I mentioned my mother yet?—was so fraught that I couldn’t help feeling nervous about how I would do with a daughter. To some extent all parents act and react according to how they were reared. Some people might model their parenting on what their parents did. I wanted to model my parenting on something more abstract—what my parents didn’t do. But maybe having a girl was too close to home. What if I brought all my confusion and trouble with my mother to the relationship? I’d rather not have a girl at all than be a bad mother to a daughter. So when I found out Liam was going to be a boy, I thought, Okay, maybe that’s what’s meant to be. Maybe I’m meant to have all boys. I got comfortable with that idea, and I started to like it.
At one of my regular checkups, Dr. J said it was too soon to officially call it, but he thought I was having a girl. Dean and I were shocked. What? Impossible. We said, “No, no, no. It’s a boy.”
Dr. J said, “I would go on record saying I’m ninety percent sure it’s a girl.” After that there was a seed of hope, but neither Dean nor I really believed that it could be a girl. Later, at twenty weeks, we went to a different doctor for the quadruple screen sonogram. This time we knew we were going to find out the gender. As the nurse was doing the preliminary exam, Dean said, “Do you see what I see?” I did. We both saw a penis between the legs. When the doctor came in, he said, “What do you guys think you’re having?” (He must do this to torture all his patients. What fun. For him.)
I said, “We think it’s a boy.”
The doctor said, “Really? Why do you think it’s a boy?”
Dean pointed at the ultrasound and said, “That’s a penis right there!” The doctor explained to us that we were looking at the labia of our baby girl, but we still didn’t believe him. He practically had to pull his degrees down off the wall to convince us. Even when we had a detailed ultrasound again later in the pregnancy, we asked, “Are you sure it’s a girl? Is that stuff between the legs still girl stuff?”
Okay, so Mama Lola doesn’t have a perfect track record. Voodoo’s an imperfect science. At
the doctor’s appointment when we found out that I was pregnant with a girl, I was so shocked and overjoyed that I completely forgot to worry about the size of her nose or any other superficial concerns. A daughter! I’d longed for a daughter for so long, but I never really thought I’d actually have one. My—our—own little girl.
In the car on the way home I started to think about the relationship I wanted with her. I would strike the perfect balance between mom and friend. I would never judge her. I would always tell her she was beautiful. I would give her all the emotional strength I could, the confidence and optimism to do whatever she wanted to do. The list I went through was all the things I felt I hadn’t gotten from—you guessed it—my own mother.
As the pregnancy went on I started to get scared. Nothing was more important to me than to be a good mom. What if I was even more disastrous than my mom had been with a girl? What if all my hopes and intentions backfired and the past repeated itself tenfold? What if with a girl I became my mother all over again? What if I was cursed? Liam was so daddy-focused. What if the girl was the same way? What if both kids loved their daddy more and there was nothing we could do to change that? What if Dean was just a person kids love more than kids love me? Would I feel excluded? Would I pull away to protect myself? Is that what had happened with my mother—I was so attached to my father that she resented it? Then I remembered my first wedding and thought, no, she created our dynamic.
Mommywood Page 4
