Celebrity Moms Get Real About Their Unique Experiences of Motherhood

(Photo: Instagram / @chrissyteigen)Celebrity babies are one of our favorite news obsessions (who [...]

By Emily Bihl

chrissy-teigen
(Photo: Instagram / @chrissyteigen)

Celebrity babies are one of our favorite news obsessions (who doesn't love seeing a new addition to a favorite famous family?), but not all pregnancies and paths to motherhood are the same. It takes real strength and courage for a celeb mom to open up about her private life, especially if her behind-the-scenes experience wasn't so pretty.

Click through to celebrate these strong mamas who broke stereotypes and got real about their experiences.

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Chrissy Teigen

Just this month, the supermodel (and best-selling cookbook author!) penned a thoughtful confessional for Glamour about her battle with postpartum depression. Her candid story sent shockwaves through the internet and gave a much-needed voice (and face) to women who are currently struggling with the symptoms Teigen described, which included physical pain, loss of appetite and exhaustion.

"I couldn't figure out why I was so unhappy," she said of the period after her daughter's birth. "There was a lot of spontaneous crying." As always, Teigen's talent for telling it like it is is her greatest gift, and we couldn't be happier that things have since improved for her and her family.

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Hoda Kotb

Hoda Kotb has been nothing if not straightforward about her long-held desire to be a mother. But when treatments for breast cancer left her unable to give birth to biological children, she didn't know what the future would hold for her. Early this month, however, she adopted a baby girl of her own—and is embarking on a journey of motherhood at age 52.

"Sometimes in your life, things just don't work out for whatever reason, so you say, 'Well, I wasn't meant to have that.' But it was really hard to come to terms with it," she said of the revelation that she wouldn't be able to have a baby. We are glad to see that fate took her down another path, and that she'll now be a wonderful mother to baby girl Haley Joy.

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You're my hallelujah

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Lauren Holiday

U.S. soccer player Lauren Holiday was blessed with her first child last year, but the experience wasn't a purely joyful one. During her pregnancy, Holiday began to experience splitting headaches that were out of the ordinary for the athlete. Labor was induced early by a doctor so that Holiday could undergo surgery to remove a brain tumor— a harrowing experience for anyone, but especially stressful for a new mom. "I was scared to death," she confessed on Instagram captioning a photo of her healthy, smiling daughter. In spite of this scare, both mother and daughter are now doing well.

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BOO ?

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Peta Murgatroyd

For Peta Murgatroyd, her unusual experience of motherhood wasn't in giving birth, but about what happened afterwards. Peta and husband Maksim Chmerkovskiy shared the news on Instagram that they had preserved their son's newborn stem cells for future medical use. This controversial news drew both derision from those who felt it was a marketing ploy, and admiration from those who had benefitted from stem cell research in their own lives. It's understandable that parents like Peta would take any precaution available to ensure the health of their newborn child, and many see this as simply an insurance policy against future ailments.

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