Baby Steps (23 page)

Women are out there struggling, heartbroken, feeling alone, feeling like there is something wrong with them. If you are a public figure and you know this, you have the power to make a difference. If being truthful means relieving someone else from feeling bad about themselves, well then I say, bring on the truth! Bring on the confession!

Let's just cut through all the bullshit, shall we? We can all feel a lot better about ourselves and about each other if we fess up. Why pretend you didn't go through a journey when sharing that story can lend compassion to a woman struggling through the same experience, or prevent other women from having to travel the same road? And if it can help you feel better, too?

I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying, “I had to do IVF” just rolls off the tongue and you're going to want to shout about it to everybody you meet on the street. You won't. It's not easy. No. It's a deliberate, well-thought-out choice to be real in front of people.

It kind of sucked writing this book, to be honest. I had to go to some dark places I didn't want to go. I'm sure others who have written
books about their personal experiences have felt the same. I'm sure Brooke Shields didn't enjoy talking about her postpartum depression, but she knew that going there would help other women who have gone through the same thing. That's brave. I'm sure Princess Diana didn't relish sharing her own personal hell with bulimia and depression in her biography, but she allowed that information to be made public. That's brave, too.

When I first began writing my
People.com
blog, I made my life seem pretty perfect. And I got booed off the stage. Nobody wanted to hear about my so-called perfect life. So I changed my tactics and I decided to open up about my life—my questions, concerns, flaws—and out of this sprang my blog about doing IVF. I began to be more truthful about my humanity, and suddenly, I had an audience. I couldn't believe the outpouring of support. I've received nothing but positive feedback, and story after story about women who were going through what I went through, and who were so grateful that someone they “knew” from television or movies had come out and said, “Hey, that happened to me too, and it sucked, and I know exactly how you feel.”

As I was writing this book, when people asked me what it was about, I found myself pausing, despite myself. I began to default to the answer, “Oh, it's a mommy memoir!” But this is not a mommy memoir. It's the story of a struggle. It's not warm and fuzzy and full of rainbows and unicorns and cherubs. It's about love and death, pain and disappointment. It's about infertility and IVF and the struggle to perpetuate life and chase after deep inner happiness.

So now I'm learning to say what this book is
really
about. This makes me a little nervous, but it also thrills me, not because I want to have my dirty little secrets out there for no reason, but because I want to help
you
by being a source of support.

If all the women in Hollywood with fertility issues stood up and admitted it, we could all start talking about this more openly. Fertility
issues could become less of a big deal, and seeking fertility assistance could become okay. Because
we decide it's okay.
There is a time to be private and there is a time to speak up. The issue of infertility is current and although there is obviously a lot of emotional baggage attached to it, I believe it is time for action. It's infertility's time. When we talk about infertility and we share solutions, we gain control over our bodies and our destinies. When it comes to infertility, I believe it's important to overcome our need to keep this particular issue under wraps. It's time to speak up, and I'm willing to start this conversation. But I'm not just saying, “Tell your story because I told mine.” I'm saying, “Tell your story because it's time to tell this story.”

If you have a voice, if you have a platform, no matter how large or how small—even if it's just a personal blog, or your Facebook status—then you can make a difference for someone else. Let people know how real you are, and they will only love you more. Best of all, you'll set yourself free to be who you've really been all along.

I would hate to see another generation get duped the way our generation did, falsely believing they can have a baby whenever they want without help. Let's not let this happen again. Let's remind each other that there is
no shame
in doing IVF, or using a surrogate, or in any other procedure that can help you have a baby within your own time frame, naturally or not. Why does “natural” matter so much anyway, when it comes to creating life? If you need to be a parent, what the heck could possibly be wrong with letting science help you? Science helps us do all kinds of things we couldn't do without it: cure diseases, grow enough food, create livable cities, develop alternative energy. Yet, somehow we don't want to admit it can help us have children?

It's philanthropic to tell your story. It's generous. It's kind. And whether or not you are in the public eye, reaching out to someone else and speaking your truth can make the world better. So this is me
standing up and making a call to action. This is me saying, “I had trouble having a baby. I couldn't do it on my own. My body didn't work the way I wanted it to work, damn it. I needed help. So I got help.”

And I got Botox, too.

And I have to work really hard to stay in good shape.

And I'm not really this blond.

There. I've said it. Do you love me any less? Or do you understand me more? Most importantly, do you have a sense now that you aren't alone in your pain, in your disappointment, in your struggle to look good and feel good about yourself?

Do you feel better? Do you feel like we are all just women trying to get through life, and if we stick together and talk to each other and tell each other the truth and hold each other up, then maybe this tough existence will be a little bit easier, lighter, a little bit more joyful?

If your answer is yes, then every truth I tell will be worth the sting.

So let's just be straight with each other, okay? Let's stop celebrating people for the myths they create and start celebrating people for the brave choices they make. For the beauty of their souls as well as the beauty of their bodies. For their greatest acts of love.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you yet they belong not to you.

—Khalil Gibran

 

I
live near the ocean. Early in the morning, when the slightest creeping
of light begins to break through the dark sky, turning it lavender and deep blue, the wind has that smell of a kid dunking a bucket into a pile of wet sand. In 2009, when I was cast as Lauren Gilmore on the TV series
Heroes,
this was the time of day when I went to work. Each morning, I stepped out my front door into this dim breathtaking spectacle of colors forming out of the night sky and that briny sandy wind. I got into my car and drove on the 10 going east toward Sunset Gower Studios on Hollywood Boulevard, and on one particular morning in early fall, I was feeling especially peaceful and centered and close to God. Then my cell phone rang, jolting me out of my reverie.

I picked it up as I drove toward the sunrise. “Hi, Mom,” I said.

“How are you?” she said. “How is
Heroes
going? I'm so proud of you for being back to work!” Her voice echoed through the cellular network all the way from Holland, where she had moved five years before to marry Peter, the brother of her best friend Nancy's husband, Olaf. She was far away, and it frustrated me. I longed for her companionship, and every morning at six she called me because it was one of the few times we were both awake in our worlds-apart time zones. It wasn't enough, and it was also too much. “Are you okay?” she said, the way she always did. “How is everything? Tell me.”

“I'm doing well,” I said. “I'm feeling really calm.”

“Tell me about the show. Tell me about your colleagues. How is your role developing?”

I sighed. I understood how much she wanted to share in every detail of my experience, now that I'd gotten another chance at a really popular show, but I also felt like one of the reasons I'd gotten the show was because I was coming from such a calm place.

“You know, I feel like it's going so well because I'm feeling really peaceful. Actually, this drive to the studio is kind of a sacred time for me to go deeper into myself and my silence. I've been using it to pray,” I said. I hesitated. “So . . . maybe this isn't the best time for us to talk?” I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I felt like this wasn't the time for me to be chattering on about every aspect of my new job. This was a time for me to be mentally prepared to
do
my new job.

She wasn't offended. Of course she wasn't. My mother never undermined my desires or made me feel like I was wrong to want what I wanted. “That's so interesting!” she said, with total sincerity and an unabashed enthusiasm. “I really feel like I've been getting closer to God in my own life, so much more than at any other time in life. It makes me really happy to know you are on a similar journey.”

“I think I really am,” I said. “I feel closer to God, like I'm starting to understand some things in my life. I'm going deeper into silence. I feel like I'm getting to know myself in a whole new way. So . . . if you don't mind, maybe I could use this time for prayer, and we can talk later?”

“Of course!” she said. “Of course, let's both get closer to God. I feel like all I want anymore is to get as close to God as possible. It's so important. I love that you are doing this, too.”

“It is important,” I agreed. “Thanks for understanding that. I'll talk to you later.”

I hung up the phone and went back to my thoughts, not one iota of my being even considering that this might have been one of a handful of final conversations with my mother. We talked almost every day. I thought those talks would go on forever. I took them for granted.

She still called every so often in the morning over the next few weeks, when she knew it would be the only time for her to talk, but the calls tapered off because she was giving me that space I told her I needed. Then came a week where she called, and I didn't pick up the
phone. I was just slightly irritated that she was calling after we had agreed that I needed that time. I knew she was coming for Christmas, so I would see her soon. She didn't need to be calling me now. I thought,
I'll call her back later,
and then I never did.