During Gwen Stefani’s first pregnancy, she was just a girl trying to have it all, which included a successful music career.
“I find out I’m pregnant with Kingston and I was in rehearsals, and I was, like, so sick,” Stefani, 54, recalled during an upcoming episode of “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast” via E! News.
Stefani remembered struggling to balance her Harajuku Lovers Tour in 2005 while carrying Kingston, who is now 17.
“It’s the first time I had to work with this band, first time I ever had dancers, first time I ever did costume changes, first time being pregnant,” she said, adding, “I think I cried, like, every night.”
When her and ex-husband Gavin Rossdale’s eldest son was born in 2006, Stefani said she felt good about returning to the studio to work on 2006’s The Sweet Escape. “It just felt so right to keep going creatively. It was just so real and right,” Stefani said.
Once she welcomed her second son, Zuma, in August 2008, the mom guilt began to set in. Reuniting with her band No Doubt also added to the pressure of being away from her kids.
“I had Zuma and we just kept going in the studio and we ended up writing this record called Push and Shove,” Stefani remembered. “And to leave the kids to go do that, I would feel so guilty and selfish.”
The singer confessed, “I would go there and, like, knock my head against the wall and no song would come. And yet, I’m not with my kid, and I’m not good enough to write a freaking song.”
In time, Stefani finished the record with No Doubt, marking the band’s last album before parting ways in 2013. (No Doubt announced in January that they will reunite at the Coachella Music Festival in California in April.)
Stefani told listeners that even with all the ups and downs of being a working mom she was happy when she got pregnant a third time. The musician recalled Kingston wanting her to have another baby, but she told him she was too old.
“He would start praying every night for this baby and four weeks later, [after] praying every night, like, ‘Please let my mom have a baby,’ I’m pregnant with Apollo,” Stefani shared. “And I’m 43 years old and it’s, like, this true miracle.”
Stefani and Rossdale, 58, welcomed their youngest son in February 2014. The pair divorced in 2015 after 13 years of marriage, but Stefani’s series of miracles were far from over.
“The first miracle was getting pregnant [with Apollo]. The second was The Voice. And then the third was, obviously, meeting Blake [Shelton],” Stefani said.
The ‘I’m Just a Girl” singer met Shelton, 47, while they were working as coaches on The Voice. The couple tied the knot in July 2021.
