MADONNA MAKES A MOTHER “I’d been wanting to have a child for a really long time, but I wasn’t trying, just put it like that,” Madonna says. “It was one of those weird surprises. I was so engrossed in making the movie that I wasn’t paying attention to my body. I didn’t have any symptoms — any feelings of fatigue or strangeness. I attributed to working too hard.” “Later I was tired and I’d sometimes feel a bit nauseous, but we were shooting outside and it was 100 degrees [38ºC] every day and everyone was feeling a bit sick. If I said, ‘I kind of feel sick’, the girl doing my make-up would say, ‘I feel sick, too ···· I think the lunch was bad’. And I’d think, ‘ Yeah, lunch must have been bad’. I never, ever thought that I was pregnant, It just didn’t seem like a viable option.” Madonna’s pregnancy was later confirmed by her doctor in New York, before the ‘Evita’ cast and crew flew on to Budapest, Hungary, to complete filming. “When I finally did find out, it was kind of like, ‘No way! Really? No! I’m making a movie right now — that’s absurd’,” she recalls, laughing. “But then it was like the greatest thing in the world.” She also had an ultrasound. “When you take a blood test and they say, ‘You’re pregnant’, you just go, ‘Oh and don’t feel any different really’. But when you see the little baby and it’s …[she indicates a few centimeters between her fingers] then it hits you like a ton of bricks. It’s real. I cried when I heard my baby’s heartbeat. It was the most incredible experience. I fell in love,” she says, her eyes literally shining with emotion. Even though she and ‘Evita’ director Alan Parker decided to suppress news of her pregnancy for as long as possible to keep all attention focused on the film, Madonna says her condition actually helped her with her portrayal of Eva Peron, who died of cervical cancer in 1952, at the age of 33. “It did add another layer of tension to filming.” She admits, “ because I’d be worried that I was on my feet too long or working too many hours. I had lot of dancing to do [Eva was a tango aficionado] until I was about four and a half months. There was a lot of jumping and sometimes I fell and I’d think, ‘I’ve done it this time’, and I’d rush to the doctor to make sure everything was okay. I must be built like a tank, because nothing happened.” “It made me very protective of myself, and I think that helped my character, because Eva always had a lot of health problems, Problems with haemorrhaging — she had really heavy periods and things like that. And when she found out she had cervical cancer, she hid it form people for a long time. I think she was very protective over that part of her body,” Madonna says, enfolding her tummy, and so I used that. I easily could imagine being more frail, wanting badly to protect this part of my body, That feeling of being vulnerable.” Madonna’s pregnancy has been smooth. “ I’ve never been sick, just more tired than usual. I’ve been really lucky, I have to say,” she reports, rapping on the table beside her. “ Touch wood !” She pauses to sip a frothy iced coffee from a plastic tumbler. “Instead, I just feel I don’t fit into spaces anymore, and it’s getting harder to put my shoes on. I bent over to put my shoe on the other day and fell off the bench. I thought to myself, ‘This is really going to bumble me’.” “Some days I wake up and feel like a million bucks; there’s a life growing inside me and I’m the luckiest person in the and I’m the luckiest person in the world. And then other days I get up and just go, ‘Uggghhh….I’m a fat pig, I’m as big as a whale’. I took in my closet and I just can’t find anything to wear. “It’s difficult when you’re used to being really fit and agile, having an enormous amount of energy and strength and a really flat stomach. It’s difficult when suddenly you have to surrender your body, and it’s a very good lesson for me.” “ It’s given me license to relax in a way that I never really allowed myself to . And, you know, deep in my heart it’s all very good for me. It’s good for me to have to deal with all these changes. It’s going to be good for me to have the baby and have fat and then have to get rid of it.” “很久以來我就想要個孩子，但並沒有刻意去要，只是順其自然，”麥當娜說：“那是種異樣的興奮。當時我正專注於拍電影，並沒在意身體的變化。我沒有任何徵兆 — 我從未感覺疲勞或不適。我工作得太投入了。” “後來我覺得疲勞而且時常有點兒噁心，但當時我們在室外拍攝，每天溫度高達100華氏（38攝氏度），大家都覺得噁心。要是我說，“我覺得有點兒難受，給我化妝的女孩就會說：‘我也難受···· 八成是午餐變質了’，於是我就覺得，‘對，一定是午飯壞了’。我從未想過我懷孕了。我看上去不大可能。” 後來在《埃維塔》一片的角色和劇組人員準備飛往匈牙利布達佩斯完成拍攝前，麥當娜在紐約的大夫證實了她的妊娠。“當我最終認定時，確實有點象，‘不行，真的？不！我正在拍電影，這太荒謬了’，”她笑着回憶道。“可隨之這件事彷彿又成了天底下最了不起的事。” 她也做了超聲波檢查。“當你驗血時他們說，‘你懷孕了’，你不用管它， ‘哦，沒什麼了不起的’。可當你看到了小孩子而那是個······[她用兩個指頭比劃着幾釐米]，那時它就如同重石捶胸。真的。當聽到小寶貝的心跳動時我哭了。那是最非凡的體驗。我墜入愛河了，”她說着，雙眼閃着激動的光。 儘管她與《埃維塔》的導演艾倫·派克決定封鎖她懷孕的消息並儘可能久地將精力集中在影片上，麥當娜說她的狀況的確有助於她去更好地刻畫愛娃·庇隆重的形象，愛娃1952年死於子宮頸癌，年僅33歲。 “這的確給拍攝增添了一層緊張氣氛，” 她承認道，“因爲我擔心站立的時間太長或工作過久。我得經常跳舞[愛娃是個探戈的舞迷]一直到懷孕四個半月的時候纔不跳了。那時經常跳來跳去，有時會摔倒並且還在想，‘我這次又摔跤了’，然後就跑到大夫那兒看看有沒有事。我身體一定像坦克，要不然怎麼一點事也沒有呢。” “懷孕使我非常注意保護自己，同時我想這也有助於我飾演的角色，因爲愛娃的身體總不是很好。她患過大出血以及諸如此類的毛病— 經期時曾很嚴重。當她得知她患有子宮頸癌時，將此事隱瞞了許久，我想她一定非常注意保護身體的那個部位，” 麥當娜捂着肚子說，“所以我也就那樣。我很容易想象自己的身體比愛娃更虛弱，急需保護自己身體的這個部位。那種脆弱的感覺真令人難以想象。” 麥當娜的妊娠期較爲順利。“我從未感到噁心，只是覺得比平常累點我兒。我承認，自己真的很幸運”她叩擊着身旁的桌子說：“避避邪！”她停下來呷了一口塑料杯裏浮滿泡沫的冰鎮咖啡。 “我只是覺得發胖了，鞋子很難穿了。有一天我彎腰穿鞋時從凳子上摔了下來。我心裏想：‘這簡直是要我難堪’。” “有時我醒來感覺像個大款；體內生命的蠕動使我覺得自己是全世界最走運的人。而有時下地走一走，‘哈哈—我是頭肥豬，大得象只鯨魚’。看看衣櫃裏，我找不到合身的衣服。” “你平時苗條靈活，精力充沛，這下子可難了。你突然間要聽從身體的擺佈，這對我是個極好的教訓。” “懷孕倒使我有了從前享受不到的放鬆自己的自由。要知道在我內心深處我是很樂意的。對待這些變化對我是有益的，有了孩子而且身體變胖然後又得減肥，這將是非同尋常的。”
