Singer Alanis Morissette is baring her baby bump on the cover of Self magazine’s latest digital issue.
Steph Wilson for SELF
In her feature, Alanis opens up on her struggles to get pregnant for a third time. She reveals, “I always wanted to have three kids, and then I’ve had some challenges and some miscarriages so I just didn’t think it was possible.”
Despite feeling “so much grief and fear,” Alanis points out, “I chased and prayed for pregnancy and learned so much about my body and biochemistry and immunity and gynecology through the process. It was a torturous learning and loss-filled and persevering process.”
The ”You Oughta Know” hitmaker announced she was expecting again in March by posting a pic of herself in a recording studio showing off her growing baby bump.
Alanis is also honest about experiencing postpartum depression after welcoming son Ever, 8, and daughter Onyx, 3, with husband Mario “Souleye” Treadway. She says, “I would just wake up and feel like I was covered in tar and it wasn’t the first time I’d experienced depression so I just thought, ‘Oh, well, this feels familiar, I’m depressed, I think.’ And then simultaneously, my personal history of depression where it was so normalized for me to be in the quicksand, as I call it, or in the tar. It does feel like tar, like everything feels heavy.”
She is more prepared the third time around and will not wait to get help, saying, “Not singularly relying on myself to diagnose myself is key. Because the first time around I waited.”
Alanis adds, “And now this time I’m going to wait four minutes. I have said to my friends, ‘I want you to not necessarily go by the words I’m saying and as best as I can,’ I’ll try to be honest, but I can’t personally rely on the degree of honesty if I reference the last two experiences. I snowed a lot of them as I was snowing myself [the last two times].”
She also makes sure to bring attention to her husband Souleye, who has been there throughout her third pregnancy. She explains, “if I need something at any given time, if at 4 p.m. I need probiotics he’s like ‘I’ll be right back.’ So that’s amazing.”
Morissette also discusses her parenting techniques, sharing, “I talk about this with my kids a lot, the four boundaries being: You can’t tell me what I’m thinking, you can’t tell me what I’m feeling, you can’t f**king touch my body/you can’t do anything with my body, and don’t touch my stuff.”
Along with her “four boundaries,” Alanis uses empathy to teach her kids, saying, “It’s a lot of, ‘Oh, sweetheart, yes your heart is broken for that person and that person’s going to be okay.’ And I’m so grateful for those moments because I get to notice and I get to support my children in a way that sometimes I wasn’t, just because I was in a different generation. Those weren’t conversations being had 44 years ago.”
The article notes that Alanis will be giving birth in a few months. We’ll be on baby watch!
For more, visit Self.com!