Jennifer Lawrence says she felt like her life ‘started over’ after giving birth to son Cy: ’Now is day one of my life’
It’s all about Cy!
Six months after giving birth to her son, Oscar-winning actor Jennifer Lawrence, 32, is opening up in Vogue’s October cover story about becoming a mom and how it's changed her life — and worldly views — forever.
“I mean the euphoria of Cy is just — Jesus, it’s impossible,” she proclaimed. “I always tell him, I love you so much it’s impossible.”
The Causeway star shares baby Cy with husband Cooke Maroney, 38.
“My heart has stretched to a capacity that I didn’t know about,” she continued. “I include my husband in that. And then they’re both just, like, out there — walking around, crossing streets. He’s gonna drive one day. He’s gonna be a stupid teenager and be behind the wheel of a car. And I’m just gonna be like, Good night! You know? Like, who sleeps?”
Still, although being a parent has brought an abundance of joy to the actress’ life, she had worried about how her love would manifest after giving birth.
“It’s so scary to talk about motherhood. Only because it’s so different for everybody,” the Don’t Look Up star explained. “If I say, ‘It was amazing from the start,’ some people will think, It wasn’t amazing for me at first, and feel bad. Fortunately I have so many girlfriends who were honest. Who were like, ‘It’s scary. You might not connect right away. You might not fall in love right away.’ So I felt so prepared to be forgiving. I remember walking with one of my best friends at, like, nine months, and being like, ‘Everyone keeps saying that I will love my baby more than my cat. But that’s not true. Maybe I’ll love him as much as my cat?’”
Of course, all that concern faded away on the day Cy was born.
“The morning after I gave birth, I felt like my whole life had started over,” Lawrence shared. “Like, Now is day one of my life. I just stared. I was just so in love. I also fell in love with all babies everywhere. Newborns are just so amazing. They’re these pink, swollen, fragile little survivors. Now I love all babies. Now I hear a baby crying in a restaurant and I’m like, Awwww, preciousssss.”
For Lawrence, who suffered two miscarriages before having Cy, it’s been an uphill journey to get to this moment.
The actor became pregnant in her early 20s and “one hundred percent intended” to get an abortion then, she explained. But before she could go, “I had a miscarriage alone in Montreal,” she said. Years later, she had a second miscarriage while shooting Don’t Look Up and needed to get a D&C (dilation and curettage).
Motherhood, in turn, has sparked new passion in Lawrence about issues that directly impact women and children — including the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ongoing discussions about gun control and school safety, as the number of school shootings continues to climb.
“I remember a million times thinking about it while I was pregnant,” she explained of the aftermath of Roe. “Thinking about the things that were happening to my body. And I had a great pregnancy. I had a very fortunate pregnancy. But every single second of my life was different. And it would occur to me sometimes: What if I was forced to do this?”
On the topic of gun reform, Lawrence expressed concern about how school shootings will affect her family in the future.
“I’m raising a little boy who is going to go to school one day,” she said. “Guns are the number-one cause of death for children in the United States. And people are still voting for politicians who receive money from the NRA. It blows my mind. I mean if Sandy Hook didn’t change anything? We as a nation just went, Okay! We are allowing our children to lay down their lives for our right to a second amendment that was written over 200 years ago.”
Outside of politics, Lawrence says being a mom has also given new insights into her own craft.
“Art more often than not is about one’s mother,” she added. “I hesitate to say that because I would hate for somebody to go back and watch my movies, or watch this movie in particular, and think that that is the way that I’m painting my mother. My mother is a wonderful person. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still things from my childhood that I’m working out.”
Now that she's the mom, the star says it's funny to think about how Cy will view her as he gets older.
“So many of my films in the past have been about my mother, my childhood,” the actor explained. “I wonder what will happen now that I’ll be witnessing somebody else’s childhood. And I wonder what he’s going to be talking about with his therapist. She wouldn’t put me down. She kisses me on the mouth. She asked me not to go to college.”
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