Natascha McElhone Opens Up About Delivering Rex Alone
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When the time came to deliver son Rex Coltrane, 6 ½ months, Natascha McElhone did so alone – as she had been the last five months of her pregnancy. “It just felt right somehow,” the 37-year-old actress, who lost husband Martin Kelly to a heart attack in May 2008, tells Hello!. “If Martin couldn’t be there, I couldn’t replace him with someone, as that would have felt very strange.”
“I wanted to be on my own because that was the way it was going to be. I was going to be my baby’s only parent so I may as well get used to it.”
The birth itself was “incredibly painful and challenging,” Natascha admits, but as soon as she held baby boy those feelings melted away. “My first thoughts were, ‘Phew, we made it!” she reveals. “Then there was just this incredible endorphin rush, this tremendous joy.” Her older sons — Theo, 8 ½, and Otis, 5 ½ — were excited to meet their new baby brother the following morning, but expectation temporarily clashed with result! “They raced in and ran towards him — but of course, he wasn’t what they expected at all,” Natascha says. “They wanted someone robust, who they could play with and instead they got this floppy, mewling gerbil. They were most unimpressed. It took a while!”
Fortunately, the boys have since warmed to Rex – or “little Buddha,” as Natascha calls him – in a big way, and she invokes Martin’s name often to keep the boys’ memories of their dad alive.
“I thank God I had two babies with Martin before so I know exactly what his reaction to Rex would be. I imagine him kissing the back of Rex’s neck and doing all the things he loved doing with the others. I say to the boys, ‘Daddy used to do this with you guys.’ They’ll say, ‘Lets do it to Rexy!’ And we all pile in and give him hugs.”
Click below to read about how Natascha arrived at Rex’s name.
Rex’s middle name is a nod to Martin’s love of jazz musician John Coltrane. She jokes that had Theo or Otis been allowed to name their new brother, he “would have been called ‘Rocker’ or ‘Slide Guitar.’” Fortunately Theo was intently focused on the then-ongoing presidential election in the United States. “[He] was very insistent that we should have a democratic vote, so I was able to veto those,” she says. “When I told them that Rex meant ‘King,’ they thought that was appropriate.”
Natascha says that she is ever mindful that “the loss of one’s father is very different to the loss of one’s husband.” To that end, she feels she needs to “have to have some humility around that.”
“I hope that I don’t force them or impose on them and that I haven’t deified their father to the point where he becomes this inaccessible God-like figure in their lives that they can never live up to. I’m worried about all of these things.”
While the thought of raising three sons alone is sometimes daunting, Natascha says she has help in Theo and Otis, both of whom do a good job of keeping Rex “amused.”
“At home, his dear little head is permanently going from side to side watching the other two, like he’s at a tennis match…They just adore their little brother.”
Source: Hello!, May 12 issue
– Missy
- Posted on May 7, 09 at 11:00AM
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- 19 Comments
May 7th, 2009 at 11:31 am
How incredibly bitter-sweet to read. Natascha seems so incredibly wise and together for someone who has been through what she has. My heart goes out to her and her boys.
But oh, how lucky are Theo, Otis, and Rex to have such a wonderful mommy!
May 7th, 2009 at 11:56 am
This is so sweet. Honestly, when I hear stories like hers it makes me want to cry (why does something like that happen to a beautiful, loving family?). But it is so wonderful that little Rex has the tremendous love from his mother and two big brothers! He’ll be just fine and I’m sure his Daddy is looking down on him with smiles every day : )
May 7th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Stories like these amaze me how incredibly strong women are!!! Her boys are so very lucky to have a Mom like her!! I wish her all the best and most happy days ahead with her three boys.
May 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I am crying so much! It breaks my heart, especially when Natascha says ” I imagine him kissing the back of Rex’s neck and doing all the things he loved doing with the others. I say to the boys, ‘Daddy used to do this with you guys.’ They’ll say, ‘Lets do it to Rexy!’ And we all pile in and give him hugs.”
It’s so sad that poor little Rex will never know his father and that those boys will never see him again. I do hope Natascha will find future happiness as she does deserve it. I don’t like to think of her going through life alone with her sons with nobody by her side although I’m sure she has lots of support from family and friends. I saw the magazine and Rex is such a beautiful happy smiling baby boy, very much like Zuma. Reminds me of how my son used to be. Oh I do miss those days!
May 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
What a beautiful baby, and what a bittersweet story. Natascha seems like a wonderful, smart, and lovely mother, and I’m sure she’ll do a great job of raising these three boys!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I get a little choked up reading her story. What a strong woman!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Does this mean she had an unassisted/freebirth? I can’t really tell.
——
No, Rex was born at the hospital. She just meant she didn’t have family or friends in the delivery room with her.
- CBB Staff
May 7th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
What a woman, that is an amazing story. I cannot imagine going through that at all. Those boys will take good care of her, that’s for sure.
May 7th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Coming from a situtation like this is not easy (my dad died when my mom was pregnant with me and she did an amazing job by herself). Natasha seems to be a great Mom and she has three boys who will love on her forever…a strong woman indeed. I wish her and her boys nothing but happiness and smiles after all they deserve it.
May 7th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I love hearing updates from her and I am so glad that she is doing so well, but for some reason, this post made me incredibly sad.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
What a gorgeous baby! It’s wonderful that she seems to have such clarity about such a sad part of life.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
goodness… what an amazingly brave and beautiful person she is!
wonderful and entirely heartbreaking to read.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I say to the boys, ‘Daddy used to do this with you guys.’ They’ll say, ‘Lets do it to Rexy!’ And we all pile in and give him hugs.”
This warms my heart and breaks it all at the same time.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
She’s amazing. Beautiful inside and out.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I just can’t even imagine what she’s been going through internally since her husband’s death. Trying to reconcile all those conflicting emotions! Ecstatic about giving birth to her baby, but equally devastated to have to do it alone. Watching the baby’s milestones but still sad because only she gets to keep those memories instead of getting to share them with her husband. When she talks about her situation she is always so wise and brave about it. She never sounds bitter just peacefully resigned. She makes me feel ashamed to complain about the insignificant issues in my life.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
There’s a beautiful cover shot of Natascha and Rex, and some lovely ones inside the magazine:
http://www.hellomagazine.com/photo-galleries.html?imagen=/film/2009/05/05/hello-mcelhone-baby/imgs/hello-cover-1071-a.jpg
I too found this so sad to read yet so hopeful and beautiful. One of the things that stood out in the article was when Natascha said that she took Martin’s mother with her to her 20 week scan, just days after Martin had died and found out the sex of the baby because she wanted some certainty among the devastation.
I don’t know if any of you read the Martin’s obituary? Natascha wrote it for a national newspaper here in the UK and it was, as one journalist said, a heartbreaking piece of writing. It made me cry, not only because of what she and her sons had lost but because she could be so eloquent in her grief. She said she wrote it at the encouragement of Martin’s best friend who said she was the only one who could do it – and that she had wanted to get in there ‘and shout aloud his name, make sure no-one misunderstood him.’ She said that what she and Martin had been blessed with in their time together was more than ‘I could have wished for in my wildest dreams’ and why she still felt like the luckiest woman alive. She said: ‘I have love in my life.’
May 7th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
How incredibly brave and composed Natascha sounds in these interviews. Her boys are extremely lucky to have her and vice versa–Rex is so adorable on the magazine cover.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:51 am
Aw, what an intense story to read! Such a strong family to be able to enjoy the joys and fun a new baby brings and yet remember the man that helped make the baby. Blessings to this sweet family! Rex indeed is a “little Buddha!”
May 9th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
wow this is heartbreaking to read but she seems so strong- i cannt even imagine doing what she does daily with out my hubby =( my heart goes out to her and her boys