Ciara on Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum Recovery | Body Stories | SELF

you may hear the sound of like a little ch in the background but i am pumping as we speak right now and i'm trying to play it cool but yeah it's real again enjoying every step of the process [Music] being pregnant during the pandemic made my pregnancy feel like it was going 20 times slower than normal i was like these four walls what am i going to do with myself my hips were like hurt like that i literally thought i was going to need a cane to hold me up i'm like oh my gosh like i am walking around here lopsided like a penguin i was like cece the penguin basically walking around in the house i also shot a video for a song i have called rooted i actually had a really good time doing things like that still like working while being pregnant still working out while being pregnant was also game changing for me and i would be in the gym like dog tired like not really wanting to go to the gym but every time i would go into the workout i felt 10 times better and i was energized so i was just doing things to keep myself you know entertained and really just embracing it all i honestly learned a lot about myself in the process there's a lot of things that i feel really grateful for and really empowered by you know us women are really built for it all so all my mama's out there go mama go okay cause baby um it was quite a time but you know i again focus on the silver lining of it all and i'm really grateful for um you know all the good that i was able to find in the midst of the storm and the chaos i will tell you one other cool thing though that i think um was a great thing is that because your body is familiar with the process when i was delivering when my delivery was the quickest one um i literally pushed him out and probably like my process like almost 10 minutes it was so fast my body knew exactly what to do you know they say you forget about the experience of having a baby and i definitely forgot about the deliveries prior because it's a process and so that's why you keep on having more babies because you forget about all the pain that you go through but this was my easiest delivery with win by far i was in a hospital um here in california and um definitely different because the hallways were way more empty and the craziest thing is my obstetrician dr cats who i love so much he's delivered all my babies and we're like family but it doesn't matter if you're like family you still have to be safe so i literally was getting ready to do my first push and for a moment my mask was down and he literally goes she's gotta put the mask on like he was like not playing about it and it just lets you know how serious these times are like you really have to be safe and smart and so that was different having a mask on my face the whole time that i'm pushing um you know was definitely different than before but luckily my mask is pretty comfortable so and the last thing i was worried about was the mask just like getting went out and i would say even with rust too he also um it was so sweet because he was everything in one um you know obviously just being there supporting me um he's the best at that but he was the cameraman as well so he had like two cameras like i put this camera right here so then um she was checking the angles like okay when the baby comes out this is how this camera we positioned i think it also made the experience you know even more special because you know we're like okay we are together during these times and we are experiencing one of the coolest um things you could experience in life and that's creating life so it was pretty sweet my process in postpartum i will say with this pregnancy feels like my best like i feel like i'm not stressing about you know the come down like the bounce back um it's just hard to really stress about it because i'm still breastfeeding waking up two times in the night to pump is a lot and i'm doing it every day and i hope to go for nine months i always stopped at like three to four months with both babies before so there's a lot that i'm juggling plus work and all that stuff and i also you know have a three-year-old a six-year-old so i mean my time is divided away differently now um but i'm enjoying the process i'm embracing like my curves as i have them i actually hope a little bit of the curves stay on especially i want to keep the dunk on don't go called the dump we keep it on uh you know i'm always hoping like please stay don't go away but i'm loving this process like it's so cool when i look up and i see future in siena and you know how much they love their little brother nguyen and how much joy i'm experiencing and honestly even with being at home during covid and quarantine i feel like you know another blessing is being able to be around them more than i've ever been around them before i i just feel like an abundance of love honestly is pretty cool the one thing that i learned on my course of life and especially through the tough times that the greatest gift we can give ourselves is self-love and i believe you know especially being a mom and a wife you know i just feel good about myself when i like take care of me like you know when i it's simple things like whether it's like washing my face routinely and you know um when i wake up even though i'm in quarantine i'm still going to be cute in quarantine like you know i think all those things are important like i like walking around feeling put together because otherwise you will feel like life is super chaotic because it really is it's organized chaos when i'm also feeling good and looking good or you know you know looking pretty good um i just thrive more like i really feel like man like i'm doing it all like and that is a very empowering feeling if i can have any influence on the way my kids look at life and their perspective of how they um love themselves how they treat others um they have way more access and equity than i had growing up so they already have they're starting off at an advantage and i worked hard for that me and my husband work hard for that i'm proud of the starting placement right for my kids and i i believe they're going to do much better if they just listen to mommy and daddy they'll do all right we never really you know you your mom you always tell you like no like you don't understand why they would say no when you're growing up now i understand okay and i am going to try my best way to communicate no to them when i want to say no and they don't understand it so i think the biggest thing that i'm hoping to have is like great communication with my kids and just being able to find the best ways to communicate and be in the safest place for them and be good ears too like even if you want to go crazy and go off like what'd you just say to me what happened you know i hope to be able to um you know just yeah have have that balance and be that support for them and that they feel safe there are a lot of things i've experienced in life that i hope to pass on to my babies so they don't have to go through nearly half of what i went through i've had an incredible journey as an artist and entrepreneur and also as a woman and the way that i when i just took a moment to like pause and reflect on my life and the big picture of it all and i thought about the not so pretty moments and the moments that kind of feel ugly i was in a place to say that i'm grateful for that ugliness i'm grateful for the failure in my life but i remember like turning a corner like and of being in one of the best places in my life but thinking back about like it was like a moment of gratitude and appreciation and like man like all that i went through it's all good because the end result is greater the end result is beautiful um it all works itself out like so all those scars like they're my beauty marks like that was a true realization and i was like i can smile at those moments that i can smile through when i was going through those things like i'm like like okay like you know god you're amazing right and so that was a true realization for me so i wrote the title down on my note sheet um on my phone my notes section on my phone i just been sitting on them like when i get the chance to write a song um you know i want to write a song about beauty marks it definitely was inspired by me looking at my life and i say like around 29 30 years old you hear people women talk about 30 years old and what that is like for us and how it's significant or how you feel like your best place and i was entering that place and so i was reflecting on the whole journey and i'm like man all those moments that just felt so funky and i did not know how i was gonna make them through but i kept my faith but they were my beauty marks [Music] you

Channel: SELF

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Keywords: ciara singer, self cover, body stories, celebrity birth story, ciara self cover, ciara pregnancy, ciara postpartum, ciara birth, celeb births, ciara russell wilson, ciara wilson, ciara dancer, ciara, ciara prenancy story, russell wilson wife, self cover story, ciara pregnancy story, ciara pregnant, post pregnancy, ciara difficult pregnancy, third pregnancy, ciara 3rd pregnancy, ciara pregnant with twins, ciara recovery, ciara self care, postpartum recovery, self

Id: r6YpPae62m4

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021