Emily Ratajkowski thinks pregnancy is “lonely”.
Emily Ratajkowski
The 29-year-old model is expecting her first child with her husband, Sebastian Bear-McClard, and has said she hates it when he uses the term “we’re pregnant” to describe their impending parental status, as she believes she is “ultimately alone” in her pregnancy.
She said: “My husband likes to say that ‘we’re pregnant’. I tell him that while the sentiment is sweet, it’s not entirely true. I resent that his entire family’s DNA is inside of me but that my DNA is not inside him. ‘It just seems unfair,’ I say, and we both laugh. It’s kind of a joke, but there is truth behind it.
“Pregnancy is innately lonely; it’s something a woman does by herself, inside her body, no matter what her circumstances may be. Despite having a loving partner and many female friends ready to share the gritty details of their pregnancies, I am ultimately alone with my body in this experience.”
Emily also noted her husband doesn’t feel any of the “aches” and “pains” that she has been enduring on a daily basis since falling pregnant.
She added: “There is no one to feel it with me - the sharp muscular aches in my lower abdomen that come out of nowhere while I’m watching a movie or the painful heaviness of my breasts that now greets me first thing every morning. My husband has no physical symptoms in ‘our’ pregnancy, another reminder of how different a woman and man’s experience of life can be.”
The model has said she’s keen to raise her child in a gender-neutral environment, but admitted she’s worried about having a daughter, as she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to “protect” her from misogyny.
Writing in an essay for Vogue magazine in which she announced her pregnancy, Emily explained: “I can’t help worrying. I still fight subconscious and internalised misogyny on a regular basis, catching myself as I measure the width of my hips against another woman’s. Who is to say I’d be able to protect my daughter from it?”
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