Emma Roberts is opening up about her journey to motherhood.
Emma Roberts is opening up about her journey to motherhood. The 29-year-old actress covers the December/January issue of Cosmopolitan -- marking the first pregnant star to ever cover the magazine in its over 100- year publishing history -- and talked about her difficult experience freezing her eggs prior to getting pregnant with her first child with her boyfriend, Garrett Hedlund.
Roberts froze her eggs at the advice of her doctor after getting diagnosed with endometriosis, which can cause severe pain -- especially during menstrual periods -- and also possibly present fertility issues. Roberts said growing up, she always wanted to be a mother.
"At 16, I thought, 'By the time I'm 24, I’ll be married with kids,'" she tells the magazine. "And then I was 24 and I was like, 'Remember when I said I would be married with kids by now?' With work, especially with acting -- the travel, the hours -- it's not always conducive to settling down in a traditional way."
"It really started to come to the forefront of my mind when, a few years ago, I learned that I’ve had undiagnosed endometriosis since I was a teenager," she continues. "I always had debilitating cramps and periods, so bad that I would miss school and, later, have to cancel meetings. I mentioned this to my doctor, who didn't look into it and sent me on my way because maybe I was being dramatic? In my late 20s, I just had a feeling I needed to switch to a female doctor. It was the best decision. She ran tests, sent me to a specialist. Finally, there was validation that I wasn’t being dramatic. But by then, it had affected my fertility. I was told, 'You should probably freeze your eggs or look into other options.'"
Roberts said she was "terrified" of going through the process and possibly finding out she couldn't have kids, though eventually, she did freeze her eggs. She also shared that she at first felt "stunned" about her potential fertility issues, but was able to receive support when she started opening up to other women.
"I was so grateful to find out I was not alone in this," she shares. "I hadn't done anything 'wrong' after all."
"It sounds cheesy, but the moment that I stopped thinking about it, we got pregnant," she continues. "But even then, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Things can go wrong when you’re pregnant. That's something you don't see on Instagram. So I kept it to myself, my family, and my partner, not wanting to make grand plans if it wasn't going to work out. This pregnancy made me realize that the only plan you can have is that there is no plan."
Roberts also gave an update on how she's feeling being pregnant in the middle of a pandemic.
"Long story short: I am hungry and tired," she shares. "Food and sleep do not abide by the normal laws when you're pregnant. But I'm healthy, which is the thing I’m most grateful for. To see my body change inside and out so drastically has been a wild experience. Surprising and beautiful. Then again, some days I feel like I'm being hijacked by something."
ET spoke with Roberts last month, and she talked about her mom, Kelly Cunningham, accidentally spilling the beans on her pregnancy news on Instagram. Watch the video below for more.
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