Jania Ashlynn
The actress is opening up for Today’s digital spring issue about her motherhood experience.
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Motherhood Moments
Chopra Jonas says that no matter what, once her workday is over, it’s time to give her baby girl a bath.
“After that, I’m not available. We do bath time, storytime, bedtime,” she shared. “And then it’s our time (for me and Nick), whether we … have friends over or just sit together and watch a movie.”
After the birth of their daughter Malti, the actress and her husband Nick Jonas, aged thirty, supported each other. Malti spent more than one hundred days in the NICU.
“I remember [Nick] just held me by my shoulders, and I said, ‘Just tell me what to do, because I don’t know what to do,’ ” she added. “And he’s like, ‘Just get into the car with me.’ And we drove to the hospital.”
Chopra Jonas went on to say that, “She was born, and from the moment she took her first breath to now, she’s never been without one of us, ever.”
Malti was always accompanied by one of them, so they passed the time together. But looking back, the new mother sees the situation in a new light. “I don’t think it was our test. I think it was her test.”
Life In New Light
“I realized very, very early that I did not have the luxury to be scared or to be weak because she was scared and weak. And I had to be her strength as her mom,” Chopra Jonas continued. “I needed to make her feel at every given moment that she’s not alone … that we’ve got her.”
Once their daughter arrived home, the actress discussed having difficulty adapting to caring for her baby outside of the hospital.
“[In the NICU], you know your child is alive because you can see their heartbeat (on the monitor). I couldn’t sleep for days because now suddenly she was home without a monitor,” she shared. “I used to put my ear on her chest. I would wake up every couple of minutes just to see if she was OK. For weeks, this went on.”
Chopra Jonas says that being a mother “just makes me want to conquer the world.”
“When I wake up and do a million things, I can do them really well, because I know that I come back home to my family,” she added. “And that’s such a priority to me now.”
