Baby Steps (19 page)

After she nursed for a while, they took her away again. My mother had arrived, so she came in to see me, and then Ron took her to the nursery to see Easton. Finally, they brought the baby back to me for the night, so she could sleep next to me in her bassinet, so my hand could be on her while we both slept.

That night, as I lay there with both Ron and Easton sound asleep, looking out the window at the lights of the city and feeling my daughter's warm little body beneath the palm of my hand, I knew that
everything was as it should be. I needed to be a mother. And I was. I am. I will be forevermore.

I had a baby. But I also had another issue to face as I navigated the unfamiliar waters of motherhood: throughout my blissful ice-cream-infused, nap-heavy pregnancy, I had gained a lot of weight. When I went into the hospital to deliver Easton, I weighed 202 pounds. Throughout my pregnancy, I never felt fat, but when I looked back later at pictures of me, I was startled. Was that really me? How did that happen?

“I was enormous!” I told Ron.

“No you weren't,” he said, unconvincingly.

As soon as I had the go-ahead from my doctor, I got back to exercising. My mother was staying with us for a while, and she encouraged me to take time to go to the gym, go on walks, and even go out on auditions, not because she thought I needed to lose weight, but because she knew I needed to take time for myself.

“I'm here,” she said. “Take advantage. You need to get your body back.” She knew, more than I did, how important this was, because she suffered from so many physical problems due to being overweight and her other health issues. “Get healthy,” she urged.

“I just want to lie in bed and cuddle with Easton,” I said.

“Lis,” she said, shaking her head. “You are beautiful. Love your body. Don't ignore it. You just had a kid and you have every right to celebrate what your body just did for you. Your top priority is to enjoy your baby and just live in that love fest. I'm not telling you to go ‘work out.' I'm telling you to take some time for yourself.”

“I've let myself go,” I lamented.

She laughed. “You didn't ‘let yourself go.' You let yourself love. But you have to love yourself, too. So go take some you-time. Go find your body again and give it some love—it's given you so much.”

It took me a while, and it took a hell of a lot of work. I did it the old-fashioned way. I wasn't one of those celebrities who bounces back after a couple of weeks to my regular size 0. As if I've ever been a size 0. And I'm sorry, but there are a lot of pills circulating out there in Hollywood that people take to lose weight faster. If you are under the impression that you can lose fifty pounds in a month and a half, you are misinformed. I had a few people say to me, “You know, you don't have to work that hard. I have these great little pills and you'll just drop the weight.” “You should try HCG shots, it will all fall off with no effort.” “You don't have to go to the gym every day. You can look phenomenal.” People in Hollywood text pictures of each other back and forth with comments like “Look at her now! She's the size of her old leg! All she did was take this pill!”

I just couldn't get on board with that. I've always been drug free and I don't judge anyone for doing what they need to do, but let's be realistic about weight loss. It's not easy.

I'll never forget when I was in Turks and Caicos for a publicity event less than a year after Easton was born, and I met Bethenny Frankel on the beach. She told me she loved me on
Law & Order,
and then she said that she'd just written a book called
Naturally Thin
and she'd love to give me a copy.

“Not that you need it,” she rushed to add. “You look great.”

After she gave me the book and walked away, I looked at Ron. “She did
not
just give me
Naturally Thin,”
I said.

“She was really nice,” he said.

“I
know
she was nice,” I said. “But can't she see I'm fighting baby weight?”

“She said you looked great,” Ron said.

“Sure. ‘Hi, Bethenny, you look spectacular in your bikini, and I'm going to go kill myself,'” I said.

“Oh come on,” Ron said.

It was a humbling moment, but most of the time, I really do feel fine about who I am and how I look. And I love cheese, and bread, and wine, and I adore chocolate, and I'm a snacker. So sue me. Sometimes, I feel like I'm a bottomless pit, and with a daughter and a busy work schedule, I don't have a lot of time to exercise anymore. But I'm working and I'm healthy. I'm back to knowing
that's
what's beautiful.

I owe this attitude to my mother. She gave me a gift she was never quite able to give herself. She spent years going to Weight Watchers meetings and trying fad diets. Once she told me, “I'm only going to eat lentils this month.” Another time, it was, “I'm only going to drink my food!” All the fads and challenges of dieting were part of her yearly ritual, but at the same time, when I was a teenager struggling with body issues and wanting to take diet pills, she took me by the shoulders and said, “You are so beautiful, I hope you always know that and always encourage that in others.”

I think when you have fertility issues, you can feel particularly unbeautiful and unfeminine and your body doesn't feel sexy. Then once you have a baby, you realize that after everything your body has done for you, it's time to give something back. But this isn't about being “fat” or “thin” or looking like some unrealistic ideal. It's about loving your body no matter how it looks, no matter what it can or can't do. There are all shapes and sizes of bodies and all shapes and sizes of beauty.

Sometimes people ask me if I feel pressure in Hollywood to be skinnier, but I really don't. I know it's a stereotype, that we're all pressured to have perfect bodies, but I think Hollywood is actually very kind to women, perhaps kinder than women are to themselves. Maybe other actresses had different experiences, but I never felt the pressure to have the perfect body. Sure, I had my humiliating moments in the dressing room: the “compliments” on my small chest
and voluptuous bottom. I was never the five-foot-four waif who looked so charming next to the five-foot-ten leading man. I was the five-foot-ten actress who required a giant leading man—someone like Sam Waterston. I've been lucky enough to have those leading men who were six feet tall and more, but it wasn't always easy. I think, however, that I could handle it and that I didn't let it get to me at all, because of what my mother instilled in me from childhood: I've always had that foundational belief that I am beautiful exactly the way I am.

It's not just me. Yes, there is pressure to have a good body and look young and beautiful in Hollywood. Of course there is—it's part of the game. However, there are plenty of extremely successful women in Hollywood with real-world bodies, beautiful bodies, curvier bodies, bodies that aren't skinny but are real and sensual and lovely. Sure, sometimes I might overindulge and have a few second thoughts about whether I'll still look good when my show starts filming again, but then I just go back to the gym or go for a brisk walk or eat more vegetables. It's all good. Skinny is just one of a thousand ways to be beautiful. Hollywood is full of all kinds of beauty, just like the rest of the world, and having a unique look is often better for your career than looking like a Barbie doll. You have to be a little bit tough in the business, but I also believe there is room to be yourself, if you're brave enough to step in and take up that space.

So, thanks, Mom! I may not walk around naked in my house like you did, and when I change my clothes, I still close the bedroom door. But when my daughter does catch a glimpse of my body, she notices, and I see her internalizing her own ideas about the body. “Mommy, there's your butt! There's your boobs! There's your vagina! There's your back!”

Yes, Easton. Yes. It's my body, and it carried you, and bore you, and fed you, and thank God. I hug my daughter with this body. I
cook food for her with this body. I love her father with this body. I get the extreme privilege of living my life every day in this body. I also notice that she has her own sense of modesty, and I love seeing her recognize what belongs to her and what is okay to show to the world. I love how she chooses to close the door when she changes, too, although I would also love her just as much if she chose to leave it open.

I remember saying to Dr. Sahakian, “I can't believe my body is broken,” but I've come to learn, after all of this, that my body was never really broken. It was just unique, and it aged in a certain way that I didn't necessarily like, and it can't do everything I want it to do, but what body can? It has done what I needed it to do, even if it didn't always do it in the most perfect or expected way. I know now that this is enough for me.

We all have our body struggles—infertility, overweight or underweight, chronic diseases, whatever it is. For some of us, the burden of the body is much greater than for others, who may have other burdens: emotional, social, financial, familial. We also have our own unique shapes. I have small boobs and a big butt and a little bit of cellulite on the backs of my thighs. But you know what? I look at myself and I think,
Wow, you look damned good after taking all those fertility drugs and carrying a baby for nine months and being a working mom!
And I believe it.

IVF worked. I made it through pregnancy. I made it through childbirth. I breastfed blissfully. I still can't have another baby naturally, even though they say that sometimes, having a baby through IVF will kick-start the process and the next one just happens. So far, that hasn't happened for me, and if I want to have another baby, I'll have to do IVF again. And it might work. And it might not work.

But that's okay for now. I've found peace with my body.

Most importantly, I tell my daughter the same thing my mother told me: that
she
is beautiful, and her body is a treasure, and she should cherish it and honor and love it, no matter what it can or cannot do, no matter how it looks, no matter what anyone else says about it. I remind myself of the truth of these words every day, and I pray that my daughter will always believe them.

Three things cannot hide for long:
the moon, the sun, and the truth.

—Herman Hesse

 

T
he Woodstock I know might not be the Woodstock you imagine.
It's not a town full of tie-dye-clad groupies in a pot-induced haze refusing to admit it's no longer the 1970s. Okay, maybe it is a little bit like that, but it's also a small artist's community that my family and I call home. It's a place off the beaten path, a couple of hours from New York City, where we gather to be together in the beauty of upstate New York. To get there, I drive north through winding roads and miles of forest, literally removing myself from the frenetic and busy urban world. When I make that two-hour drive, I feel like I'm traveling deeper into my own life to get a closer, calmer look at myself.