Rumer Willis Shares Stunning Never-Before-Seen Photos of Her Home Birth
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Rumer Willis gave an intimate look at her childbirth with baby Louetta, and it is a testament to the beauty of motherhood!
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The model appeared on The Mother Daze podcast with hosts Sarah Wright Olsen and Teresa Palmer, where she shared more details about her labor and delivery as well as never-before-seen photos from her home birth. Olsen shared the stunning pictures on Instagram, writing, “I feel so honored to be able to share the most gorgeous photos of my dear friend @rumerwillis for todays episode of @themotherdazepodcast where she tells her incredible birth story and postpartum journey!! ????”
Rumer Willis posted the sweetest moment between her father, Bruce, and daughter. ?? https://t.co/E7IFWdmvVS
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) June 21, 2023
Willis first appeared on the podcast when she was pregnant, and now she is back “to share her gorgeous home birth story, the very vulnerable moments right after, the quiet hours when everyone leaves and the days and weeks that follow.”
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In the first photo (which you can see HERE), Willis rests her head on her arms as her sister, Scout Willis, leans in close. They both have their eyes closed in a sweet moment. In the next photo, Willis is completely naked, lying in a tub. The black-and-white photo shows Willis lying on her side, with her bare baby bump stretched out in front of her. You can see her rib tattoo in the stunning picture, which says, “Be present.” It’s absolutely beautiful.
In other photos, Willis’s mom Demi Moore gives her a big hug, and the full-circle moment is making us emotional. Moore covers her daughter to protect her as Willis is working hard to birth her own daughter, and it’s such a special picture. There are gorgeous photos of her on her hands and knees in the tub pushing. One of her partner Derek Richard Thomas kissing her on the head as she lies in the tub. In the last photo, Willis is lying on the floor with a blanket on and a washcloth on her forehead. Her mom is reaching over to hold her arm as Thomas is holding her hand. She looks so strong, and the photos have us in awe.
In the podcast, Willis dished on exactly what her home birth was like. She said she had so much fear at the beginning of labor.
“I realized for me, so much of this giving birth was such a, kind of psycho-spiritual work for me because I had so much fear,” Willis said, adding, “When I would have a contraction, I started talking to myself because I had all this fear come up, and I would just start sobbing. And I was like, ‘Hey, little girl, it’s OK that you’re afraid. It’s alright. You’re doing great. You can do this.’ Because I didn’t really know where I was at.”
After going on a long walk through the neighborhood with her family, she was 100% effaced and dilated to 2 centimeters. Her contractions started coming “really fast and really hard.” She sat on a peanut ball and called it “brutal trying to sit still through a contraction.” She added, “I can’t even imagine having to sit still. There’s no way.”
At first, she was “bracing against” the contractions, but when her doula helped her “moving with” them, it became so much easier. “I’m literally holding the sides of the tub … and I literally start like, I don’t know, gyrating or moving my hips — it literally looks like I’m having sex with an invisible person in the water,” Willis said with a laugh. “It was the only thing that I was able to get through it. It was wild.”
Rumer Willis' ethereal photos show the beauty of new motherhood! ???? https://t.co/DfMZ4GqI6L
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) August 12, 2023
She got out of the bath and would lie down on the floor with a pillow in between her knees. Then, she would get up on her hands and knees and walk in circles during the contractions and lay down again as soon as they finished “and get whatever sleep I could.”
“All of sudden, my body is like, ‘Oh, I need to push,’” she said, adding, “I dilated from two to eight in like 40 minutes.”
Willis reached down as her baby in the amniotic sac was coming out. “I could literally feel — it was like a water balloon. It was the wildest thing that I’ve ever felt.”
She moved to a birth tub in the living room and broke her water. “I had a contraction, I pushed my fingers up there, put a little bit of pressure against it, and all of a sudden it just went woosh,” she explained.
“After I broke my water, I could feel her head and I could feel how much hair she had. I thought it was the most amazing thing ever,” Willis added. It sounds so surreal!
During her labor, Willis’s baby’s heartrate dropped, so she left the birth tub and sat on a birth stool. Her midwife told her she could cut her to help the baby come out; after Willis agreed, she had another contraction where baby Louetta’s head came out, and during the next one her whole body came out.
“I think I was pushing so hard, and it’s like my body and my mind went totally somewhere else,” Willis said. “Because in the moment it was like boom boom, and then she was out. You have all this oxytocin, and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, this is my baby.’”
After Lou was born, she said she felt like, “This is the most beautiful being I’ve ever seen in my life.” Her mom and sisters were there, and they were all “sobbing.” About a minute later she felt pressure, and she “pushed my placenta out into my hand. I barely caught it.”
Rumer Willis took to social media to share beautiful birth photos and penned a touching message for her daughter, Louetta. ?? https://t.co/Uv1M8pX1Tt
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) May 16, 2023
In a few moments after birth, her sister Tallulah Willis told her later that Willis looked at her baby and said, “I miss you.” When Tallulah told her, Willis didn’t realize that she had said that, but it made sense. “Oh, it’s because I know you. Which I feel like I do,” she said. “And I’m sure most moms have that. But it’s like, yeah, you’re my person. I can’t imagine ever not having you. Like I’ve just been waiting for you.” We are sobbing over here!
“It’s so strange and also the most miraculous thing,” she said about motherhood. “Like I’ve never loved anything more in my entire life and would do anything for this kid.”
Childbirth is nothing like in the movies, as these beautiful photos show.
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