CERRITOS, CA - MARCH 19: Eva Mendes attends the Eva Mendes For New York & Company Spring Launch at the Los Cerritos Center on March 19, 2014 in Cerritos, California. (Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images for New York & Comp) (2014 Getty Images)
Eva Mendes went out of her way to keep her pregnancy a secret – even going so far as to hide her growing belly with piles of clothes whenever she was out in public.
But the “Hitch” actress finally broke her silence about motherhood and spoke for the first time about the birth her daughter, Esmeralda Amada, who was born in September.
“I’m completely exhausted,” the Cuban-American actress told Violet Grey’s magazine, The Violet Files. “I thought my wild nights were over but these are some of the wildest nights I’ve ever had.”
Mendes, 40, told the magazine that she and her boyfriend, actor Ryan Gosling, 34, are currently raising their daughter without a nanny, even though they work a lot. She said they are open to the idea somewhere down the line.
“Esmeralda has two amazing grandmothers and incredible aunties who come over and really help me,” she said, admitting that she is constantly scared that she is doing something wrong. “But as far as a nanny or a night nurse, for me that part of being a mother at this early stage is the struggle of not being able to sleep and not knowing what I’m doing and really going through it with her and battling out those nights.”
While Mendes clammed up when asked about the pregnancy – she would not say if they were trying to have a child or if it was a surprise – she did speak about keeping it a secret.
“Whether we like it or not, privacy is going to be very difficult for Esmeralda,” she said. “I think it’s unfair but that’s our reality. So Ryan and I decided early on to give her much privacy as we could. And my pregnancy was the first opportunity to give her that.”
She said she also thought that having her pregnancy photos blasted all over the tabloids would ruin a very “intimate moment” for her.
“I know that it seems all very innocuous when you’re flipping through a tabloid at the doctor’s office or see a photo of a pregnant lady online,” she said, “but I find the media’s ‘bump watch’ obsession to be both intrusive and stressful.”
The “Hitch” actress said they knew it would be a girl and had a great time naming her.
“We both love the Esmeralda character from the Victor Hugo novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ and just think it’s a beautiful name,” Mendes said. “Her middle is Amada, which was my grandmother’s name. It means ‘beloved’ in Spanish.”
The struggles of motherhood have made Mendes appreciate her mother more.
“I cannot believe that by the time my mother was 24 she had three kids under the age of four,” she said. “She was in Cuba and totally alone. So when it’s the wee hours of the night and I’m feeling a bit insane, I think about her and realize that I have no right to complain about anything.”
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