'Desperate Housewife' Marcia Cross Happy With New Mom Role

NEW YORK – Marcia Cross, who recently gave birth to twins, is proud to be a member of the Mom Club.

"I wanted to be a member of that club so badly, and now I'm in and it's so much better than I even imagined," says the 45-year-old actress, who plays Bree on ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

"Even before I was 30 I started thinking about (motherhood)," Cross tells People magazine in its April 23 issue, on newsstands Friday. "The years started going by and I was anxious about the clock ticking. Now it seems like it was all meant to be."

Cross gave birth to daughters Eden and Savannah in February — one month before her March 21 due date — hours after being diagnosed with preeclampsia, a disorder characterized by high blood pressure that threatens both mother and baby, according to the magazine.

"Savannah was born first and then Eden followed within the same minute," says Cross' stockbroker husband, Tom Mahoney, who held the actress' hand while she underwent a C-section. "Then we had a symphony of crying and it was fantastic."

Cross appears with the twins on the cover of magazine, with more photos inside.

The couple, who wed last June, began dating in 2004 after Cross spotted Mahoney, 49, at a flower store in Los Angeles and left her number with the shopkeeper.

"We did in vitro a week after we got married," she tells the magazine. "We were supposed to go to Greece and Paris and have this fancy honeymoon, and I said, `Let's stay put and see if we can't give this baby a chance."

The plan obviously worked.

"I was hugely terrified," Cross says of expecting twins. "And I was more scared to have girls — probably from just having been one. Now I'm just delighted. There's nothing closer than the female bond."