The picture above is Nia Vardalos wearing Christian Siriano at Tuesday’s premiere of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. I love the color and the cut but I am not a big fan of the ruffle, it breaks up the sleekness of the dress. I also like the lace dress she wore for the Sydney premiere pictured below, which is weird for me because I am not a fan of lace. Nia wrote the first Wedding film but it took her fourteen years to write the sequel. The reason for the delay, she says, is because she was trying to have a baby. After 13 IVF treatments, Nia and husband Ian Gomez turned to adoption at the suggestion of friend Rosie O’Donnell. In 2008, they were matched with 3-year-old Ilaria through the American foster-care program.
After finding incredible success with her box office hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding in 2002, Nia Vardalos couldn’t wait to make another one of her dreams come true: becoming a mom.
Unfortunately, Vardalos’ road to motherhood took much longer than she ever expected.
“It was a sad process for me to become a mom and a long process,” Vardalos tells PEOPLE.
The actress and her husband, former Cougar Town star Ian Gomez, 51, tried for years to have a child. But after 13 failed IVF treatments, unsuccessful surrogate attempts and several miscarriages, the couple realized having a child was not going to happen as they had hoped.
“I felt so embarrassed that I couldn’t have a biological child,” Vardalos, 53, tells PEOPLE.
She also admits this was the main reason for the 14-year wait for the follow-up to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which she wrote and produced.
At the end of the original comedy, she had written that her character had become a mother. Yet, without having the real-life experience, she felt she couldn’t write the role authentically.
“I wouldn’t know the emotions of what to write. I just said, ‘I can’t do it,’ ” she says.
But Vardalos never gave up and found her solution by turning to the American foster-care system. In 2008, after more than nine years of struggling to become parents, she and Gomez got a call they’d been matched with a 3-year-old girl.
Today, the couple’s 10-year-old daughter, Ilaria, is the joy of their lives and Vardalos couldn’t be happier about being a mom.
“I am so grateful and can’t imagine my life without her.”
I appreciate Nia’s language about being embarrassed because I can empathize. I did not struggle with fertility but I did have a miscarriage and felt I had failed in some way. I’ve heard similar sentiments from friends who couldn’t breastfeed or had to have unexpected caesarians. The emotions tied to parenthood are so individual and can be quite isolating.
Although it is understandable that Nia felt unable to write about motherhood without the experience, I assume the emotional toll of the subject was a big factor as well. I am glad she was able to finally write a sequel because I loved the first movie. I made moussaka the other night and couldn’t help but call it “Moose-ca-ca”, much to my children’s delight. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 opens March 25.
Producer Rita Wilson at Tuesday’s premiere. This dress is great on her
Photo credit: WENN and FameFlynet Photos and Getty Images
Hugs, Nia. Adoption is beautiful but I do empathize with the emotional pain of not being able to have biological children. It’s hard and even when you think you’ve got it licked, it comes right back around to bite you again.
In other news, I am crazy excited for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2!
Agreed, Kate. As someone who has struggled with infertility for years, there were many times when I thought I was “over it”, but then something would happen (a friend would announce a third pregnancy, mother’s day would roll around), and BOOM, tears. Lots and lots of tears.
The red dress would have been great without the big ruffles on the shoulder, she’s got Shredder’s shoulders (Ninja Turtle reference).
We’re all slogging so valiantly through the feminist trenches, that sometimes, things attributed to ‘being a woman’ hit us a little harder than we thought. I have suffered through 8 miscarriages, and given birth to two healthy for the most part children — one of my daughters has benign occipital epilepsy, which we don’t consider an illness. I empathise with Nia, too, feeling that ‘what the hell is wrong with me’ feeling, even though as a younger woman, I had planned to be child free, or adopt as a single woman later in life. While part of that path has changed, we still plan to adopt when our youngest is a little bit older. And listen, kids or not, I think all women are mothers in their way. Before I had kids, I was mother to my friends, asking after their health or making them tea when they were ill. Even my good, grouchy, I hate everyone friend who no one will ever call ‘mother’ if she can help it, loves her dogs and plants with all her dried up black heart <3
I am glad it worked out for you and good luck with the adoption in the future. I can relate to having other plans but I married and had children and love it.
The ruffle is too much but I don’t really like either look too much.
I do know what she means about having new emotions when you become a mother and experiencing a miscarriage too. I felt like my body betrayed me and I was a little depressed for a time after.
“And listen, kids or not, I think all women are mothers in their way.”
I’m not a mother. I’m a can opener to four cats. Why does a woman have to be a mother in some way anyway?
Interesting comment. It’s true that many women without children feel the need to point out, “I’m an active aunt,” “I volunteer with children,” “I teach,” etc.
Agreed. Sadly enough, some women who give birth to children aren’t really “mothers” in a substantial sense, much less every woman who chooses not to have children.
I admittedly am one of those women who’s not a mother but mentions to people that I am close with my nieces and nephews and that I mentor a teenager. Why do I do this? First of all, I only do it when people make the fact that I don’t have children a topic of conversation-I don’t bring it up on my own. As to why…I’ve found that people (mainly women) make all sorts of assumptions when they find out you don’t have kids such as that you don’t like kids, have no clue about how to deal with kids, that your life is empty, etc. None of those things are true for me. My husband and I don’t have kids because to make a long story short it just didn’t work for us. It’s an uncomfortable topic for me for many reasons so I can relate to Nia’s feelings of embarrassment. Motherhood is wonderful but there are members of our society who feel you have failed as a woman if you aren’t a mother. That’s wrong bit unfortunately it’s such a pervasive belief that I’ve admittedly internalized it to some degree (I’m working on trying not to feel that way as I know intellectually it’s wrong).
“It’s true that many women without children feel the need to point out, “I’m an active aunt,” “I volunteer with children,” “I teach,” etc. ”
I don’t know about that. I have no children (by choice), never ever wanted them, do not have nieces or nephews (and if I had them, I doubt I’d want to be too involved with them), and keep no pets.
So there.
“Motherhood is wonderful but there are members of our society who feel you have failed as a woman if you aren’t a mother.”
I am sure there are *some* who feel like that (I doubt there are very many), but… so what?
They have the right to think whatever they want; and you have the right (and a human obligation towards yourself) to ignore it completely.
Think about it: why would you spend even a second speculating about what other people may or may not think about you?
Besides, people in general think very rarely about others; and when they do, it’s rarely as passionately as some seem to think. In other words, most people don’t really give a damn about how others live.
Some of us are simply destined to be servants to cats. It is a noble calling, helping to make restitution for the many idiot humans who have grossly violated the millennia-long feline-human contract.
And no, cats are not substitutes for children. They are a different species and our relationship with them is wondrous but not a substitute for anything. Might as well say children are a substitute for cats.
It’s hard for my comment to come across as it’s meant to. What I mean is, you don’t need to have kids or even feel maternal to have a caretakers streak. No one needs to have children biologically to be a mother, etc. And even if you’re just opening a can, you’re there for four lives.
I honestly do not feel any need or desire to have a child. It is surprising to me that this is important to women or they feel it is part of being a woman. Maybe I am too young and wasn’t exposed to that ‘old school’ idea that women should be barefoot and pregnant or that being a mother is a desirable trait. I grew up thinking that being strong, independent, successful, and creative was the goal, not procreating.
I am all of those things and successful in my profession. But my infertility issues are still painful and emotionally damaging. I don’t think I have to be okay with it because I’m successful in other areas of my life.
I honestly don’t understand what is wrong with a woman wanting to be a mother and possibly choosing to stay home for a time to raise her children. As long as she isn’t sanctimonious about it and shames women who cannot have children, choose not to have children, or working moms, I don’t see why we constantly have to say people like that are bad for womanhood or are wasting their talents. Sorry as a new stay at home mom I’m rather touchy on this subject. I also know plenty of professional, successful women who wanted children more than anything and felt a real emptiness due to infertility. I think it’s a very individual thing. In 2016 no woman should feel pressured by societal expectations to have a child, but women who choose that path shouldn’t be made fun of or belittled either.
Thank you @BB
And thus, all women are not the same. I also grew up thinking that being strong, independent, successful and creative was the goal, and I’m all those things, and I also have two children. I don’t feel this is a contradiction and I’d never judge anyone else for their decision to have or not to have children. Not that I need to justify, but wanting to procreate is not “old school” thinking, unless by “old school” you mean hundreds of thousands of years of survival of the species being bred into our genetic makeup, for women as well as for men.
BB; Who’s belittling you? There’s a big difference between pointing out that women shouldn’t be made to feel as if they are defective for not wanting to experience motherhood, and saying women who do want that are bad.
I remember hearing her discuss adopting their daughter in an interview a few years back, but I don’t think I realize the extent and length of the struggles they went through before finding her.
I’m not that interested in the new movie, but I hope it does well for her.
I love Nia and I’m really happy shes opened up about how she felt throughout the whole motherhood process. I hate that she felt embarrassed. Everyone has a journey! And oh my god, that pink lace dress is gorgeous!! So flattering. I want it!
The picture of her with her husband holding their daughter swelled my heart. I’m glad her dreams came true.
I am glad Nia is being open about her struggle to have biological children and how she felt when it did not work. I know people who have tried for years to have children and the emotional toll is intense. I can understand why, at the time, she might have had difficulty writing her character as a mother.
I am glad she has a lovely daughter and although I don’t see the point of a sequel, I hope it finds an audience.
I feel her pain, I struggled as well and I was lucky at the age I was (40) with only 4% chance of working I only did IVF once after tablets, IUI and other stuff over 3 years. If it didn’t work I would have adopted. You do feel like a failure and the thought of anyone I knew who got pregnant really made me sad, I recall crying as I drove to work. I def. couldn’t go thru 13 attempts it’s so emotional and all the drugs make you PMT x100. I had to tell people at work listen if I start to act crazy this is why.
I’m glad she opened up about this although I am sorry she experienced it.
I just gad my third miscarriage in a row and it’s devastating – especially when they can’t find any reason why it happened. Everyone else I know is pregnant or has newborns at the moment and this makes me feel very alone. Hearing about similar experiences from others does normalise it to some extent and make you feel less isolated.
Oh Ariadne, my heart goes out to you. Have they checked your thyroid? I had a friend have 4 miscarriages before the doctor’s realized her thyroid wasn’t working properly. After that she had 2 successful pregnancies.
Thankyou for your supportive words 🙂 – I will be asking about the thyroid at my next appointment actually, but they were all different kinds of miscarriages (two were ‘missed’) so it seems likely to be random bad luck rather than a specific cause.
The most recent one was due to a subchorionic hematoma; the baby was actually fine up until the clot grew too big. Just unfortunate.
Oh, that is heartbreaking. *internet hugs*
My heart goes out to you as well. I knew the pain of not conceiving. To be pregnant and lose the baby, three times, would be so heartbreaking. I wish I could think of anything to say that would comfort you, but I know it would not really help. Please stay strong and know that your internet friends are rooting for you.
Thankyou 🙂 – I am so sorry to hear you had issues with conceiving; it’s such a hard thing to go through.
Ariadne, please accept my deep sympathy for your losses. I had only one miscarriage years ago I n December, and seeing babies in crèches everywhere I turned really was tough. It can be very isolating. Could your hospital or social service agency recommend any support group? Or could you Google online support groups for women trying to conceive after miscarriages? At any rate, GNAT is right that you DO have Celebitchy internet friends rooting for you, and sending you hugs and love.
Thanks Nikki, 🙂
There’s nothing like that here unfortunately, but my family are supportive enough thankfully!
Ariadne count me among your supporters. We’ve been trying for over a year and half and recently managed a pregnancy only to miscarry. It’s so emotionally draining and people who haven’t experienced it just can’t understand.
I’m so sorry. The miscarriages alone are scary, not knowing why must awful. Take good care of yourself.
As a unit, family is so complex. Ultimately, creating a family isn’t really in your control. And since we women are biologically tasked with the job of creating that family, I think it hits us harder when we realize we don’t have that control. Even if we can conceive, we can’t force our partner to do it with us. And even if we can carry a child, we aren’t guaranteed a childbirth that will make it possible for us to choose to do it again. And even if we have the child, we can’t guarantee that we’ll always have a partner to help us raise the child. All these things can mean you don’t have a child, even when you really wanted one.
She seems like such a lovely person and I’m so happy that she did become a mom in the end. I don’t plan on getting married or having children but I think every adult has experienced that feeling of “what is wrong with me?” at least once in their life. Maybe not to this extent but even reading the comments here, it’s pretty clear that for a lot of women/couples this can be so difficult. And even if you do choose to not become a mother, there is that moment when you look around and realize that most of your friends are suddenly married with babies. It’s a weird feeling and sometimes I do feel like maybe I’m a bit of a freak for not wanting any part of it. … And then I see someone who clearly should not be a parent and I feel better. 😉
Her lace dress is perfect btw, I love it.
My cousin and her husband recently adopted the little boy they had fostered for almost 3 years, after trying unsuccessfully to conceive for a few years prior to that. We come from a huge Italian family and that’s what she’d always dreamed of having for herself someday, so she was devastated when it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen naturally. What made it even worse was the lack of support from both her family and her husband’s. Her mother-in-law even had the nerve to say to her face that her infertility was her fault because she’s an avid runner. I guess that if she just stood on her head for a few hours after sex, she’d be the new octomom by now!
…Hey, did I just figure out why Alec Baldwin’s wife is always sharing those yoga pictures?
What a shame that women are made to feel embarrassed, that they somehow caused a problem for others due to problems conceiving. It’s one thing to be disappointed that your dreams for yourself are hard to fulfill, but quite another to feel that you didn’t live up to the high (and for many people, impossible) expectations of your social world. But this is a world in which women were not too long ago cast aside or even killed for not bearing children.
I feel like it is not necessarily always being made to feel embarrassed, or like failure to live up to others’ expectations. When I had a miscarriage and found that the pregnancy had actually ended weeks before I had the strangest feeling of being some kind of chump or fool…it is not easy to explain at all, but I did dwell on how a basic thing that is so apparently effortless to so many can be like a minefield of suffering for others. Once you lose that innocence that things should work out in that department, you never get it back.
Her book, Instant Mom, details her journey of infertility and adoption. It’s really good and full of lots and laughs (and, yes, cries). I expect almost every woman who has experienced some degree of infertility knows exactly what she means by “embarrassed “. For me, it felt like failure. Failure at its most primal, basic level. I can’t do what biology designed my gender to do! I know thinking like that does no good and I try to banish it from my head, to varying degrees of success. So to have someone who is able to be a vocal, public face for this horrible life sentence means the world to me. I hope she knows that in some way.
Watch it! Someone might call you out for using gender and not sex. These days, gender is something you can change like a t-shirt and isn’t tied to anything biological.
Portugal, glitter tears is sharing one of the deepest hurts someone can experience, and you correct her gender appropriate language! While I am all for LGBTQ awareness, we are becoming a culture in which all the norms are disciplined through group approval or mockery. The NYT had a fascinating article yesterday on the difference between a guilt culture, from recognizing right and wrong, to the internet’s powerful shame culture. I am sure glitter tears meant no harm, as she’s pouring out her wounded heart to us. Your saying, “Watch out!” Just really reminded me of this.
Lol! Thanks for the warning and defense guys 🙂 I do actually know the difference between gender and sex, and in my case both are female :). I used gender b/c I thought the filter might reject a post using the word sex (clearly not an issue!).
Wanting kids and not being to have them is a heartbreaking ordeal. I had a hysterectomy two years ago and it was devastating because it killed my dreams of having a child. I’m glad she was able to be a mother and wish her and all other women struggling the best.
Dragonlady, I’m so sorry that you’ve had to endure this. I do have children, and I don’t plan on having any more; but about 10 years ago I started having health problems and was told that a hysterectomy was the only way to resolve the issues. I declined to have one at the time because even though I had no plans to have more children, I could not bear the idea of not being able to, should I decide. Silly? Perhaps. But my point is, I can really appreciate your situation and feelings about it. I truly hope you are able to come back from your devastation and re-craft some new dreams that come true for you. **Hugs**
Thank you. You’re very kind. I love children so I volunteer at center for special needs children. Makes me happy to see smiling innocent faces.
While I understand this is a personal subject that women have their hearts and bodies sunk into, I honestly have never understood the need to reproduce. This planet is bursting at the seams with people, adoption seems to me the only logical way to help each other and get ourselves out of this overpopulated mess. I mean, I say this as a woman who’s never ever wanted kids, gets treated like a weirdo for not having any, and sometimes gets left out of work opportunities because I can’t relate to their “family values”. So maybe this is my sore spot too.
This is so insensitive. People don’t have children just to reproduce. It’s not about ‘family values’ and it shouldn’t be a burden for people to shoulder that there are tons of children waiting to be adopted. Having a child is about the miracle you’re creating. You’re literally developing a human inside of you. This human is a mix of you and the person you love most, who will carry your traits and personality and pass it down. It’s more than just popping out a kid. It’s also so hurtful to women who have tried time and again to have a child. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and I respect yours about not having kids and that doesn’t make you a weirdo, but it’s so out of touch to shame people over their want to have a child.
I was never on board with having kids, and accidentally got pregnant with my daughter while on birth control and was miserable the first 5-6 months of pregnancy but when I saw her, when I held her. Holy shit. I would saw my own arms off before thinking twice of having her. She’s such a smart, happy girl and she brings so much to this world. Just like every other kid.
I don’t feel like what I said is insensitive, like I said this is the way I see it bc I can’t understand the need and perhaps its bc it’s somewhat of a sore subject for me. All in all, I think most of us can agree overpopulation is a huge problem, and I’m not saying it’s the people who have one or two kids, but we should all think about how our “wants” contribute to the overall state of the planet. And also, I can understand that this is a sensitive subject, and think I said as much. You’re entitled to you opinion, as am I, but don’t attack my feelings.
ita, our host planet is bursting at its seams with the weight of all of us and the filth we create
there is nothing miraculous about something billions of people have done before you
Oh, man. I feel her pain as well. I had 4 miscarriages trying to get pregnant, and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I made the decision to stop. I did think about adopting, but since my husband (now ex) was so..not helping, and wanted “his own baby” I decided he would make a crap dad anyway. And I was not in a great place mentally after all of that. No matter what, none of us has it easy. I admire all of you ladies, whether you have kids or not, whether you have adopted or given birth…it’s your life and your decision. Good thoughts to all of you.
Nia’s great, but more John Corbett, please!
Ugh I love Nia!!! I’m so happy everything worked out for her and she got her happy ending. But can we discuss the shirtless John Corbett pic on the movies facebook page? HOWWWWWW DOES HE LOOK THAT AMAZING.
Hugs to everyone who’s gone through this pain, or similar pain.
I can empathize. Perhaps its not meant to be in this life, motherhood awaits me the next. There’s no way on earth DH and I could afford 1 let alone 13 IVF tries.