Debra Messing reveals pressure to lose weight after baby in March Marie Claire

I just got this issue today and typed up everything she mentioned about motherhood. Interesting stuff, especially regarding Will and Grace…

…Though Debra says that both she and her husband are enjoying her "new, womanly body," she admits that she felt pressure to get back to her prepregnancy weight ASAP. "It’s an implicit expectation, I think…at the beginning of the season, I was really working out a lot, and dieting, and it affected my ability to breast-feed. My doctor said, ‘You’re exercising too much, and you’re not eating enough to make enough milk." Well, that was enough for me. I said, "I’ll stop exercising as much, and I’ll eat enough so that my body can produce nutrients and milk for my child…period. If that means I’ll be five pounds heavier, then I’ll be five pounds heavier."

Messing can’t help but glow when she talks about [Roman.] "I literally feel, like, light coming from the inside of my body and bursting out," she said giddily. "All the cliches, like ‘Your whole world will change,’ are true, but its hard to understand until you experience it. The priority shift is a relief. There are so many things that used to monopolize my time and my energy that I realize now, in the face of being a mother, are just completely irrelevant."

Prior to having a little man running around the house, I would have spent a lot more time playing with, ‘What can I wear to this event?’ I enjoyed every minute of that, but now, I’m enjoying my time in a different way."

The information junkie in Messing found the physical experience of being pregnant endlessly fascinating. "I’d get out of the bath, and my husband and I would stand in front of them bathroom mirror and look at my reflection like I was a science experiment-like, Wow, look at that! Look what’s happening over here!"

Messing looks back with a mixture of fondness and embarassment at the attempts to conceal her belly on Will & Grace. "In one episode," she recalls, "there was a plate of fruit on the table to hide my stomach, but I was so enormous that we had to replace it with a big potted plant! When I stood behind it all you saw was my head, but if I turned to the side, you could see my stomach, so that didn’t work either. After a while, it was just a joke."

When asked if there’s anything about motherhood she finds surprising, Debra said, "Well, after the baby comes out, everything is about changes again, in terms of your hormones and body shape…The difficult thing is exhaustion. I’ve experienced a lot of exhaustion doing what I do for a living-like, I’ve fallen asleep in the makeup chair- but I think motherhood is an even more intense exhaustion because everything is new. You’re learning about your child, and every minute, he’s changing."

Still, Messing wouldn’t trade this time of her life for anything: "I feel like a woman in a way I never have before…It’s like a rebirth, adult and miraculous."

Then, Debra and Roman had to dash off to a pediatrician’s appointment!