The former member of The Cheetah Girls explains why she finds the tape recording that documents the moment her son was born via a surrogate 'so cringy.'
- Sep 8, 2022
AceShowbiz - Adrienne Bailon Houghton experienced an "out-of-body experience" when her son was born. After welcoming Ever James into the world with her husband Israel last month via surrogate, the former "The Real" co-host revealed they opted for a home birth so she could help with the delivery, and their loved ones could also be present.
"Obviously, with COVID protocols and all those kinds of things, you're limited to how many people can be in the room," she explained to "Entertainment Tonight". "I wanted her to have support. I wanted to make sure we had support. My sister, obviously, I wanted her to be there, my mom to be there, and so, guess what? With the home birth you don't have those limitations."
"You can have everyone in the room there to have that experience with you. So, literally, my mom was there, my sister was there, and literally tucked in a room right behind us was my niece, his daughter, so, they met him within minutes of being born. My sister filmed it, and when I watched it back, it's actually so cringy, because you have an out-of-body experience."
"You're not thinking about, 'Oh, what do I look like?' So, when I watched it back, I literally was just saying over and over again, 'I love you so much, I love you so much, I love you so much.' I actually got a chance to pull him out. We did skin-to-skin and right on me."
Israel recorded some songs to soundtrack the birth and Adrienne said he came up with some "beautiful" pieces of music. She said, "It's all this instrumental. Well, not an album, you just recorded a bunch of songs for this moment, and that was playing in the background. He scored Ever's birth for sure, it was absolutely beautiful."
The couple underwent multiple rounds of IVF and Adrienne had several miscarriages. While she admitted her route to motherhood wasn't what she dreamed of, the 39-year-old star doesn't think she would "change a thing."
She said, "I have to say, this journey obviously with surrogacy is not what I initially thought my journey to motherhood would be like at all."
"I imagined beautiful maternity photos, and what it would look like being pregnant, and I dreamed of that, and I still dream of that, and I'm hoping that that doesn't mean that that's not gonna happen for me in the future. But I remember literally telling my sister maybe two days after Ever was born, and just being like, 'I would not change a thing.' "
"I can't imagine myself saying that a year ago. I can't imagine myself saying, 'Oh, I want to go through this and this heartache and this struggle,' and it's so weird when you're in it to be like, 'I wouldn't change a thing, I would not change the process. I would not change how long it took."
"I would not change anything about my journey.' And that's where faith comes in, where you're like a year in, saying to yourself, 'Oh wow, God, like it happened exactly,' and people will type, 'It'll happen when it's supposed to happen,' and you'll be fighting it the whole way."
