Gwen Stefani is looking back on the stress of being a mom and touring performer. In a recent interview, Gwen opened up about what it was really like for her to balance both her solo career and working with No Doubt while she also became a mom for the first time to son Kingston — and later on, sons Zuma and Apollo. And since Gwen's willing to admit it was never easy for her, it seems like a lot of working moms will be able to relate.
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Gwen got back to work quickly after welcoming her first son, Kingston.
On an upcoming episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show podcast, Gwen opened up about having kids while on tour.
"I got pregnant, had the baby and when he was 9 weeks old, Jimmy Iovine, who's the guy at my label, he's like, 'You gotta go in the studio. There's this African rapper you need to work with,'" she explained, talking about working with rapper Akon on her song "The Sweet Escape."
She was concerned about the ways motherhood was going to change her work life.
When Kingston was 9 months old, she took him on tour, traveling to more than 100 of her shows with a baby in tow. "We're in a hotel one day and I thought that I had to stop nursing because I was like, 'How am I going to nurse and be on stage?'" she recalled.
It was important to her to be able to continue her nursing journey "because it was just such an incredible … I waited my whole life to be a mom. That's all I wanted, my entire life and so I didn't end up stop nursing."
Son Zuma came along pretty quickly after.
A month after finishing her tour, Gwen found out she was pregnant son Zuma. But it was time to get back into the studio with No Doubt.
"I think everybody was really like disappointed, you know? But it was fine, I had Zuma and we just kept going in the studio," she explained.
Gwen found it even harder to balance being a mom and in a band.
Gwen shared that she felt "guilty and selfish" leaving her boys to work, finding herself getting frustrated when "no song would come."
"I'm not with my kid, and I'm like spending time wasting it because I'm not good enough to write a frickin song," she confessed.
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She had 'no downtime' during those early years.
All moms know the struggle of never having time to themselves when their children are little, and that was no different for Gwen.
History repeated itself when Zuma hit 9 months old and, yet again, Gwen found herself on another tour … this time with two babies along for the ride.
"We went back on tour with the babies and, that took it to another level. That was like, 'I think I'm going to be dead after this tour,'" she said.
Son Apollo came along at the same time as another significant career move.
A few years later, apparently after many prayers from Kingston, Gwen found herself pregnant with son Apollo at age 43. "I think the band was like, 'What the hell?' I had Apollo and it was a true miracle," she explained.
Shortly after, she got the call to replace Christina Aguilera on The Voice, and everything changed again.
"The first miracle was getting pregnant. The second was The Voice. And then the third was, obviously, meeting Blake," she said, talking about now-husband Blake Shelton.
Her journey may have been hard at times, but in the end, it sounds like she made it to exactly where she's meant to be.
