Jessica Biel opens up about birth complications and her emergency C-section
In wake of the news that Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan have decided to separate, we turn to the other celebrity couples we cherish most in hopes that they'll stay strong - lest we completely lose faith in the notion of love.
One of those couples is Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, who married in 2012 and welcomed their son Silas Randall to the world on April 8 in 2015. However, while their relationship is still seemingly intact (thank god), Jessica has just revealed that the birth of Silas was anything but uncomplicated.
While Silas is just a few days from turning three, the details of his birth have only just come to light thanks to a new book from the nanny Jessica and Justin enlisted help from. Their former nanny, Connie Simpson, helped out during the first few months after Silas' birth. She has been a nanny for over thirty years, and the celebrity couple opened up about details of birth in a section from her new book.
The pair explained how they had carefully thought out their birth plan, which involved a natural home birth in their new "labour training facility" at their Hollywood Hills mansion. But even though they planned it all out beforehand, complications arose which saw Jessica be transferred to hospital for an emergency caesarean. They wrote that the whole experience left them feeling "exhausted, disillusioned, and totally in shock" when they came back home.
"Our story with Nanny Connie started the day we brought our son home from the hospital," Jessica and Justin wrote in an extract from the book, The Nannie Connie Way: Secrets to Mastering the First Four Months Of Parenthood. "That may sound like a normal statement coming from new parents, except our birth plan was anything but normal," they continued.
"We had two midwives, one doula, one meditation birthing class, a ton of hippy baby books, and a lovely home in the Hollywood Hills that we had turned into a labour training facility that we called The Octagon. So, not exactly normal."
Jessica said she drove herself and Justin "insane" with her obsession to create the perfect environment for a natural home-birth. But no matter how much planning they did, and how many resources they had available from the comforts of their home, circumstances left them with no other choice than to make an emergency trip to the hospital.
"I was obsessed with everything organic, toxin-free, natural, and homoeopathic for our kid, who came into this world in an operating room through an incision," Jessica revealed. "I was a dictator, making myself and my husband insane!"
"When all our plans fell apart and the serene, natural childbirth we had envisioned ended with a transfer to the hospital and an emergency C-section, we arrived home exhausted, disillusioned, and totally in shock."
Despite the ordeal, Silas is growing up healthy and happy, partly thanks to the help of Nanny Connie. The story of his birth goes to show that although you can try to account for everything, there's always the possibility that you'll run into problems along the way.