- You may hear the sound of like a little ch-ch
in the background, but I am pumping
as we speak right now. [laughs]
I know, I'm tryin' to play it cool.
But yeah, it's real.
Again, enjoying every step of the process.
[calm music]
Being pregnant during the pandemic made my pregnancy feel
like it was going 20 times slower than normal. [laughs]
It was like, "These four walls,
what am I gonna do with myself?"
My hips were all hurt.
I literally thought I was gonna need a cane to hold me up.
I'm like, "Oh my gosh,
I am walking around here, lopsided like a penguin."
I was like CC the Penguin, basically,
walkin' 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 working while being pregnant.
Still working out while being pregnant
was also game-changing for me.
And I would be in the gym, dog tired,
not really wanting to go to the gym.
But every time I would go and do 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. [laughs]
To all my mamas out there, go mama, go.
Okay, 'cause baby.
It was quite a time.
But you know, I, again, focused on the silver lining
of it all and I'm really grateful for
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 was a great thing
is that because your body is familiar with the process,
when I was delivering Win,
my delivery was the quickest one.
I literally pushed him out in probably,
my process was 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
'cause it's a process and so that's why
you keep on having more babies
'cause you forget about all the pain that you go through.
But this was my easiest delivery was Win, by far.
I was in a hospital here in California
and definitely different
because the hallways were way more empty.
And the craziest thing is my obstetrician,
Dr. Katz, 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 gotta put the mask on".
He was not playing about it
and it just lets you know how serious these times are.
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.
You know, was definitely different than before.
But luckily my mask is pretty comfortable.
So and the last thing I was about was the mask.
Just getting Win out.
And I will say, even with Russ too, he also,
it was so sweet because he was everything in one,
you know, obviously just being there, supporting me.
He's the best at that, but he was the camera man as well.
So he had two cameras, he's like
"I'll put this camera right here,
so then I'm gonna," he was checking the angles like,
"Okay, when the baby comes out,
this is how this camera will be positioned."
I think it also made the experience
even more special 'cause you know, we like,
"Okay, we are together during these times
and we are experiencing one of the coolest 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.
I feel like I'm not stressing about
the comedown, like the bounce back.
It's just hard to really stress about it
'cause 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 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 and a six-year-old.
So I mean, my time is divided way differently now,
but I'm enjoying the process.
I'm embracing my curves as I have them.
I actually hope a little bit of the curves stay on
especially I want to keep the donk on, donk,
I call it the donk, keep it on. [laughs]
You know I'm always hoping like,
"Please stay, don't go away."
But I'm loving this process.
It's so cool when I look up and I see Future and Sienna
and you know how much they love their little brother Win
and how much joy I'm experiencing.
And honestly, even with being at home during COVID
and quarantine, I feel like
another blessing is being able to be around them
more than I've ever been around them before.
I just feel an abundance of love, honestly.
It's pretty cool.
The one thing that I learned on my course
of life and especially through the tough times,
is that the greatest gift
we can give ourselves is self-love.
And I believe, especially being a mom and a wife,
I just feel good about myself when I take care of me.
When I, it's simple things,
whether it's washing my face routinely
and when I wake up, even though I'm in quarantine,
I'm still going to be cute in quarantine.
I think all those things are important.
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, looking pretty good.
I just thrive more.
I really feel like, "Man, I'm doing it all."
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 love themselves,
how they treat others,
they have way more access and equity than I had growing up.
So they already have, they're starting off
in an advantage and I worked hard for that.
Me and my husband work hard for that.
I'm proud of the starting place for my kids.
And I believe they're gonna do much better.
If they just listen to mommy and daddy,
they'll do all right.
We never really, you know, your mom
would always tell you no.
And you don't understand why they would say no
when you're growing up.
Now I understand, okay?
And I am gonna try my best way to communicate no to them,
when I wanna say no and they don't understand it.
So I think the biggest thing that I'm hoping to have
is 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, even if you wanna go crazy and go off,
like, "What'd you just say to me, what happened?"
You know, I hope to be able to,
just, yeah, 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 in 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
or the moments that kinda felt 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 turning a corner
and being in one of the best places in my life.
But thinking back about,
there was a moment of gratitude and appreciation
and, man, all that I went through, it's all good.
Because the end result is greater.
The end result is beautiful.
It all works itself out,
so all those scars, they're my beauty marks.
That was a true realization.
And I was like, "I can smile at those moments
that I couldn't smile through
when I was going through those things."
I'm like, "Hmm, okay!"
God, you're amazing, right?
And so that was a true realization for me.
So I wrote the title down on my notes sheet on my phone,
my notes section on my phone
and I'd just been sitting on it.
I'm like, "When I get the chance to write a song,
I wanna write a song about beauty marks."
It definitely was inspired by me looking at my life,
in, 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 going to make them through,
but I kept my faith."
But they were my beauty marks.
[laid-back music]