Shields - Down Came The Rain

DOWN
CAME
THE RAIN

BROOKS SHIELDS

To my daughter,

Rowan,

who makes life worth living

Contents

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS...

WHY AM I CRYING MORE THAN MY BABY?

SEE MOMMY RUN

HAD A GREAT FALL

ARE YOU MY MOTHER?

MOTHER LOAD

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

OUT CAME THE SUN

I want to express my love and appreciation to my amazing husband, Chris, for continuing to show me what true love is. My deepest thanks to my dear friend and constant support John Kimble, who said, You just have to write this book, and to Kassie Evashevski, who steered me in the right direction and made it happen. To my editors, Mary Ellen ONeill and Mindy Werner: Thank you for always keeping me on track and helping me to complete the daunting task of writing this book.

Finally, thanks to Dr. Joyce Vargyas, Dr. Andrei Rebarber, and Dr. Shari Lusskin for their support and expertise with regard to my journey into motherhood.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who dreamed of being a mommy. She wanted, more than anything, to have a child and knew her dream would come true one day. She would sit for hours thinking up names to call her baby.

Eventually this little girl grew up. Though shed met and married her Prince Charming, she was having trouble conceiving. She began to realize that her dream wasnt going to come true without a great deal of medical help.

So she went on a long journey through the world of fertility treatments. When none of them worked, she got frustrated and depressed. She felt like a failure.

And then one day, finally, she became pregnant. She was thrilled beyond belief. She had a wonderful pregnancy and a perfect baby girl. At long last, her dream of being a mommy had come true. But instead of being relieved and happy, all she could do was cry.

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

A FTER ALL OF THE TIME Ive spent in the public eye, you might think that finding out I was going to have a miscarriage moments before stepping onstage wouldnt shake me up, but it did....

December 2001. Im standing in the wings of the Palace Theatre in Hollywood, California, for MuppetFest, which is a tribute to Jim Henson as well as a fund-raiser for Save the Children. Im wearing a sleeveless black sequined dress and am in full hair and makeup. There is a great deal of excitement and energy in the air, and the audience, a full house, is having difficulty staying quiet. From where Im standing, I can see lots of grown-ups and kids milling around their seats, eating popcorn and talking.

In order not to be seen by the audience before my cue, I have to move farther backstage, to where Mr. Snuffleupagus is also waiting for his entrance. However, because he is such an oversize creature, he is too big to make room for me. I end up having to wedge myself under his chin and between his front legs. Little bits of brown fur are flying everywhere, including up my nose. It takes all my effort not to sneeze.

It wont be long before the stage will be filled with color and sound and lots and lots of fur. So here I am, wearing a pink feather boa and long purple gloves and a huge fake diamond ring that keeps getting caught on the boa. And though its not yet evident, Im pregnant. But its not that simple. Yesterday, after some basic blood work, I was told that for some reason, something wasnt right with the pregnancy, and additional testing was needed. I was reassured that it was a routine precaution. So, early this morning, before coming to the theater, I went back to the clinic to have more blood drawn. And while I was rehearsing, trying not to think about it, the technicians were analyzing my blood.

Now, while Im waiting for my cue, my cell phone rings. The news is not good. My doctor says, Im sorry, but the pregnancy is no longer viable. I start to get very warm, and a huge lump forms in my throat. My doctor delicately explains that it is natures way of saying the baby isnt strong enough to survive, and its better to have it happen sooner rather than later. There is a pause, and then she carefully adds that I am going to have to wait for my body to naturally expel the pregnancy or reabsorb it.

What! I can hardly grasp what I am hearing, and my vision begins to narrow. Just then another call comes through. Its my husband, Chris, wanting to know if I have heard any news. Almost mechanically, I relay the information. I want to throw the phone across the stage and run out sobbing, but I am surrounded by hairy creatures and cant leave.

At this moment I need to go onstage, decked out in a crazy costume, complete with a pig nose, la Miss Piggy. Did I mention I am pretending to be Miss Piggy and Im singing a duet with Kermit the Frog? As I move away from Snuffys legs and look up at him, he is sympathetically blinking his huge eyelashes at me. The stage manager can tell that something is wrong as I wipe tears from my face, but he has no choice other than to cue the Muppet rock band to file onto the stage and then point at me for my entrance. As they say, the show must go on.

I HAD ALWAYS wanted to have children, and like most people, I just assumed it would happen when the time was right. My parents were divorced when I was quite young, and my mom never remarried. I was an only child in my mothers house, and I used to beg her to adopt a baby. I desperately wanted a brother or sister to play with and take care of. My mother never did adopt a child, but my father remarried. Because my stepmother already had two children from a previous marriage, I had instant siblings. Then, luckily for me, my dad and stepmother added three wonderful daughters to the family. As a result, I was able to maintain a privileged, only-child status with my mom while enjoying being part of a larger family with my dad.

Years have a way of flying by, and before I knew it, my four years of college were over. Since I had been working basically since I was eleven months old, I significantly cut back on the number of jobs I took while I was at school. It was a much needed break. I graduated with a degree in French literature and then went back to working full-time. After a few years of living on my own in Manhattan, I met, dated, and subsequently married my first husband, Andre Agassi. We were busy with our individual careers, and our schedules often conflicted. Though we both wanted to have children, the appropriate time never seemed to present itself. Even though a great deal of love existed between the two of us, over time our lives seemed to become polarized and after two years, our marriage ended. It was a sad but amicable parting, and it was a blessing there were no children involved.

The real blessing, however, was that I was able to meet and fall in love with Chris Henchy, a comedy writer. To this day I believe that I fell in love with Chris the day we met, in 1999, but I would never tell him that! I had just gotten an American bulldog, Darla, and I brought her to meet friends of mine in the gym on the Warner Bros. lot. While there, the dog wandered off, and Chris brought her back. He was writing for a show filmed on the lot and loved dogs. We chatted and he made me laugh. I left without even knowing his full name, but he made such a strong impression that I called up a friend and told her I had found a guy I thought she should go out with. She told me she had starting seeing someone else. Because I had recently gotten divorced, I wasnt even considering dating. Three weeks later, I was hosting a show in Washington, D.C., for which Chris was the writer, and we started spending time together and became friends. I was struck by how thoughtful and funny he was. Because he knew my situation, there was no pressure, and we were just friends for quite some time. Finally, though, I had to admit that there was something between us that I could no longer ignore, and we started dating. Although we were each consumed by our individual jobs, he with writing and I with the last season of