21 celebrity mums share their honest birth stories

From Kate Winslet's emergency c-section, Megan Fox begging a hospital security guard for an epidural to Angelina Jolie giving birth in a remote hospital in India - these are the honest tales of labour from some iconic women.

On her C-Section: 'I was going to get induced because the baby was so big. Then my hips weren't opening and I wasn't dilating. My contractions were two to five minutes apart and I couldn't feel anything,' Hudson told Blackfilm.com.

'The doctor said I could go home, but it was such a pain in the butt to get to the hospital because we were being stalked by photographers. I said, "I just don't want to do this again. Let's just have a C-section." And so I got drugged up.

'I actually thought I was going to die at one point and left my body. I was looking down on myself, the pain was so intense.'

The Bump

'We were in this little hospital in Africa when Shi was born. I don’t think there was anybody else in the hospital. It was just a little cottage, the three of us. It ended up being the greatest thing. We had wonderful doctors and nurses.

It was lovely, very personal, all three in this sweet room. We had an American doctor with us, who had met the Namibian doctors, and they worked in tandem because it was a C-section and my first and we didn’t know the country. He spent a few weeks with us. There was only one pediatrician in town, and one anesthesiologist, who had to come in for that — you have to plan it. I had a C-section and I found it fascinating. I didn’t find it a sacrifice and I didn’t find it a painful experience. I found it a fascinating miracle of what a body can do.'

Celebrity baby scoop

'I’ve never talked about this. I’ve actually gone to great pains to cover it up. But Mia was an emergency C-section. I just said that I had a natural birth because I was so completely traumatised by the fact that I hadn’t given birth. I felt like a complete failure. 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.’”

Celebrity Baby Scoop

'I remember my flabby belly hanging out right after I gave birth. I kind of laughed and said to Marc, "Look, baby! Isn't this crazy?" I just didn't care.'

Us Weekly

'I didn't scream, it was really Zen. It was amazing. The labor was more like meditation. I did yoga breathing. I was focused.'

Celebrity Baby Scoop

'The experience was beyond pain. It was a transcendental experience. 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.'

Today

'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!'

Us Weekly

'I felt very maternal around eight months, and I thought I couldn’t become any more until I saw the baby. But it happened during my labor because I had a very strong connection with my child. I felt like when I was having contractions, I envisioned my child pushing through a very heavy door.' 

'And 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.'

'I actually skipped the hospital,' she said after her May 2011 birth in Hawaii. '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.'

Us Weekly

On the advice her mother, Goldie Hawn, gave her in the delivery room: 'She brings a magnolia flower. And she sort of starts to do these visualisations with me. And she's going, 'Imagine your va-jay-jay as a large magnolia flower blossoming.'

People

Hudson opened up about her recovery process after having a C-Section:

'Everybody told me how much it was going to hurt afterwards but I think I have a different tolerance for pain than others. By that night after I had the baby, I'm like "Look, I can't sit in this bed anymore. I've got to get up!" I've been up and about since he was born.

To me, the pain is no different than when you work out a muscle you've never worked out before and it's sore.'

'The first 14 hours were almost sexy. The [natural hormone] oxytocin was doing all this magic and it felt amazing,' she said.

'Someone gifted me my placenta in the form of a pill. They encapsulate it. And I have to tell you that I really loved it. I got to the point that my husband said, "Did you have your happy pills today?" And I was really sad when they were gone. It really helped me.'

New York Daily News

'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.'

New York Daily News

'We watched a couple of documentaries and we looked into the… midwife aspect of it and things, and spoke to my OB/GYN and realized that the hospital that I'm going to be laboring in does a midwife, you know, doula type of thing,' Kunis told Ellen DeGeneres. 'So I'm gonna do it as all-natural as I possibly can unless there's an emergency or something.'

Us Weekly

'I tweeted in the very early stages of my labor. I figured that if I went completely silent on social media, then people would know I was in the hospital,' Washington said of her desire to keep her experience under wraps for a little while.

The Edit

'The first thing I did was go and look at my vagina in the mirror. It looks better-looking than before.'

Huffington Post

'I had just associated hospital with being ill, and I felt beautiful and healthy and wonderful when I was pregnant, and being at home is the place I felt most relaxed and comfortable,' she said of giving birth on the bathroom floor. 'So for me, it feels normal, but there was a time when everybody had their babies at home and it wasn’t such a big deal.'

Today

'My delivery was in a bathtub. I wanted to be very aware and present during the birth…I didn't want to be drugged up,' Bundchen said. 'It didn't hurt in the slightest. The whole time my mind was focused in each contraction on the thought 'my baby is closer to coming out.'

Babble