10 Celebs on What It’s Really Like to Give Birth

In an interview with Gotham magazine, the Oscar-winning actress revealed that she lied about giving birth to her first child via C-section. “I’ve never talked about this. I’ve actually gone to great pains to cover it up. But Mia was an emergency C-section,” Winslet said. She also admitted that the experience made her feel like a failure. “I just said that I had a natural birth because I was so completely traumatized by the fact that I hadn’t given birth,” she said. “My whole life, I’d been told I had great childbearing hips. There’s this thing amongst women in the world that if you can handle childbirth, you can handle anything. I had never handled childbirth, and I felt like in some way that I couldn’t join that ‘powerful women's club.’”

(For what it’s worth, we’re firm believers that every mom is part of the ‘powerful women’s club.’)

“I thought I was going to be tough and the nurses would be like, ‘She’s a warrior princess! She doesn’t need an epidural! She’s amazing! We’re such big fans!’ As soon as I got out of the car I was already crying for an epidural. I was asking the security guard for an epidural!” the Transformers star told Access Hollywood.

When Beyoncé delivered baby Sasha Fierce (and total mini-boss) Blue Ivy, she felt a spiritual connection with her. “I felt like when I was having contractions, I envisioned my child pushing through a very heavy door. I imagined this tiny infant doing all the work, so I couldn’t think about my own pain. We were talking. I know it sounds crazy, but I felt a communication,” she divulged in Vogue.

When the Lost actress welcomed son Kahekili in 2011, she decided to go drug-free. “I actually skipped the hospital,” she revealed on The Tonight Show. “We decided to have the baby at home because we wanted it to be a natural birth, and it turns out that it was 30 hours of natural.” Oof.

“In some cases more than others, your body experiences a kind of trauma through childbirth that is difficult to explain unless you've had that experience. My case was like that, everything from my thyroid to my platelets crashed,” the Guardians of the Galaxy star wrote on her Facebook page.

“The experience was beyond pain. It was a transcendental experience,” the singer told Today. “I just went to this whole other world. I basically had to be the little soldier that I am and really focus on this new beautiful creature coming out of me.”

Sometimes things don’t go to plan, as SNL alum and future Oscar hostess (in our dreams) Rudolph discovered with the birth of her second child, Lucille. “(A home birth) was not my plan, but that’s what happened…because the baby came out really fast. Luckily, she just kind of glided into her father’s arms...It was scary, but it was kind of awesome,” she said in People.