Nicole Kidman did a new interview with 20/20’s Australia that aired last night. People Magazine ran an excerpt in which Nicole discussed her struggle with fertility issues and the fact that she hired a gestational carrier to have her second biological daughter, Faith, who is about seven weeks old. There’s some criticism that Nicole focused on her biological children (at least in the quotes that People ran) but in the full interview Nicole does talk about her adopted now teenage children, Isabella, 18, and Connor, 16, and says that she wishes they would come live with her. I think that Nicole went through so much when she separated from Tom in 2001. She suffered a miscarriage around that time and was separated from her children. She can’t talk about the way that Scientology strongarmed her into giving up custody to her children to Tom, but I think it’s safe to assume that’s what happened. (Tom’s divorce from Nicole was coordinated by Scientology, according to a former high-ranking official in the cult.)

I watched the interview online (available here) and Nicole seems starry-eyed and over-the-top as usual, but she does say some nice things about parenthood and how it changes you.

KARL STEFANOVIC: Nicole’s first pregnancy with Sunday Rose was common knowledge. But the announcement of Faith’s sudden arrival and the use of what Americans call a gestational carrier caught us all by surprise. Can I ask a personal question – were you at the birth?

NICOLE KIDMAN: Yeah! Oh, yeah!

KARL STEFANOVIC: How was that?

NICOLE KIDMAN: I mean, so deeply, emotionally moving and having given birth and then being on the place of seeing my child being born this way, the love I felt for our surrogate, gestational carrier. When we released our statement I know in Australia there was, like, “Gestational carrier – what does that mean?” And I think we were trying to be accurate. If it’s your biological child then you use ‘gestational carrier’ and if it isn’t, then you use ‘surrogate’. I mean, who knows what it is, but she was the most wonderful woman to do this for us. And we were in a place of desperately wanting another child and this opportunity arose for us. And I couldn’t get pregnant and we wanted another baby. I get emotional just talking about it ’cause I’m so grateful to her. I cannot believe I’m now crying on 60 Minutes.

KARL STEFANOVIC: It’s a beautiful thing. You should be proud of it.

NICOLE KIDMAN: Oh, so, so proud and anyone that’s been in the place of wanting another child, or wanting a child, knows the disappointment, the pain and the loss that you go through trying and struggling with fertility is such a big thing. And it’s not something that I would ever run away from talking about. I’ve had a very roller-coaster ride with fertility. I just have, and it has never been easy for me so to now be in this place where I have two gorgeous adopted children and two biological children, I can’t believe that’s what’s happened in my life, you know.

KARL STEFANOVIC: Is the bond the same when you gave birth to Sunday as with Faith?

NICOLE KIDMAN: Yes. Yeah. I mean, but it’s the same when your children are adopted as well. I think children are children. You’ll die for your children and when you feel that as a parent, I mean, that’s the unconditional love and people can talk about it and until you feel it, you can’t quite grasp it.

KARL STEFANOVIC: Nicole has always yearned to be a mum. As the young wife of Tom Cruise she conceived but suffered an ectopic pregnancy. When she was 25, they adopted daughter Bella and two years later son Connor. Have Bella and Connor met Faith yet?

NICOLE KIDMAN: Yeah. I mean, it’s so different because they don’t live with us but I would love them to come and live with us at some stage. I mean, they’re 18 and 16. It’s a different thing. They’re teenagers. They’re in a whole different place…

NICOLE KIDMAN: I’m just a girl who’s been put into pretty extraordinary situations at times and I’m kind of navigating my way through. And I fall over and make mistakes, pick myself back up and hope for the best and try to conduct myself with as much, I suppose, authenticity and, um, you know, a moral code which I feel is right and that’s really all I have, so.

[From Ninemsn.com.au]

I think there’s a lot of pain there for Nicole. She missed seeing her children grow up and she was separated from them and couldn’t talk about it. Now she has two daughters with Keith and it doesn’t replace her older kids, but it’s not like she can get that time with them back.

I have to mention the rumor that Nicole had her first biological daughter, Sunday, via surrogate but never acknowledged it. It’s not something I believe, but if you look at Nicole’s relationship with the truth it’s entirely possible. This may sound like a stretch, but look at how she admitted to Botox use many years after the fact. She said it in passing like “I tried Botox” but didn’t own up to lip implants or any other injections, or the fact that she was “trying” Botox for years to the point where she looked like a wax figure. She even said “I’ve never tried plastic surgery on my face,” which could technically be true if you don’t count injections. Maybe she “tried” a surrogate for Sunday and that’s how her first daughter was born too. There’s no shame in it, but when you try and project a perfect image you may end up fudging the truth, and then conducting multiple follow-up interviews in which you try and control how much of the truth you’re ultimately willing to disclose.

Photos courtesy of WENN.