Emma Roberts shows off her pregnancy belly on Cosmopolitan cover
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Emma Roberts is showing off her pregnancy belly — and talking about her fertility journey.
The American Horror Story actress, who’s expecting her first child with partner Garrett Hedlund, appears on the cover of the December/January issue of Cosmopolitan, the magazine’s first cover featuring a pregnant star. She talks about learning she had undiagnosed endometriosis a few years ago, freezing her eggs and ultimately getting pregnant once she stopped stressing about it.
“A few years ago, I learned that I’ve had undiagnosed endometriosis since I was a teenager,” the 29-year-old star of the Netflix movie Holidate tells the magazine. “I always had debilitating cramps and periods, so bad that I would miss school and, later, have to cancel meetings. I mentioned this to my doctor, who didn’t look into it and sent me on my way because maybe I was being dramatic? In my late 20s, I just had a feeling I needed to switch to a female doctor. It was the best decision. She ran tests, sent me to a specialist. Finally, there was validation that I wasn’t being dramatic. But by then, it had affected my fertility. I was told, ‘You should probably freeze your eggs or look into other options.’”
She said her response was that she was too busy working to freeze her eggs, but admitted she was actually “stunned” and “terrified.” After all, growing up, she had thought she’d be married with kids by age 24.
“Just the thought of going through that and finding out, perhaps, that I wouldn’t be able to have kids…” she said, adding, “It felt so permanent, and oddly, I felt like I had done something wrong.”
Roberts reveals that she did end up freezing her eggs, calling it “a difficult process.”
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While going through that period of uncertainty, she “started opening up to other women, and all of a sudden, there was a new world of conversation about endometriosis, infertility, miscarriages, fear of having kids. I was so grateful to find out I was not alone in this. I hadn’t done anything ‘wrong’ after all.”
And once she relaxed her mind a little about her fertility situation, she got a positive pregnancy test result.
“It sounds cheesy, but the moment that I stopped thinking about it, we got pregnant,” she said.
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And while that was good news, “I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” she admitted. “Things can go wrong when you’re pregnant. That’s something you don’t see on Instagram. So I kept it to myself, my family and my partner, not wanting to make grand plans if it wasn’t going to work out. This pregnancy made me realize that the only plan you can have is that there is no plan.”
She revealed her pregnancy in late August. She and Hedlund had a baby shower for their baby boy in October.
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As for how her pregnancy is going, she said, “I am hungry and tired. Food and sleep do not abide by the normal laws when you’re pregnant. But I’m healthy, which is the thing I’m most grateful for. To see my body change inside and out so drastically has been a wild experience. Surprising and beautiful. Then again, some days I feel like I’m being hijacked by something.”
For now, it’s nursery prepping — and thinking about how they’ll parent him.
“It’s a beautiful thing to know that you’re in charge of creating your child’s world,” she said. “I take that so seriously. Even just putting his nursery together, that’s the first environment he’s going to be in. Sometimes I think about seeing him in the morning and how I want to say good morning to him and how I want to put him to bed at night, all those things that end up creating your sense of safety. Sometimes it’s scary, though, because I’m responsible for this child’s world and memories, and I want to make it all wonderful.”
Roberts is the first pregnant star to appear on the women’s magazine, she noted when sharing the cover, which showed her in a pink Frankies Bikinis look. The mag’s editor-in-chief, Jessica Pels, said Roberts was “making history,” adding that it “felt like the right time.”
She and Hedlund, known for roles in Friday Night Lights and Tron: Legacy, have been linked since 2019. This year has had its ups and downs for them. In January he was arrested for DUI and placed on probation. However, he completed a 30-day rehab program, and has been regularly attending addiction counseling per the requirements of his plea deal.
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