Julie Bowen: I Wanted One Baby - Not Two!
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After welcoming son Oliver, now 4, with husband Scott Phillips, Julie Bowen always knew she wanted more kids. However, she wasn’t expecting — or prepared for — a double dose of babies!
“I was terrified. I did not want twins as a second go-around. I should have been much more cautious. I should have had … half sex?” the Modern Family star, 42, jokes in the September issue of More.
When the news broke that the actress was pregnant with twin boys, speculation grew that Bowen had turned to in vitro fertilization to expand her family. That assumption, she explains, couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Everybody asked me, ‘How many did you put in?’ and I’d be like, ‘Just one penis. Thanks!'” she says.
But despite her happiness at expanding her then family of three — which now includes 2-year-old twins John and Gustav — Bowen wasn’t willing to mask the looming challenges of motherhood.
“At the time I only had one kid, but with two on the way I was always hearing talk about golden mystical baby things and precious time,” she recalls. “And I was like, ‘Who the f— are you talking to?!’ If you could see me naked, you would weep. Children are like crazy, drunken small people in your house.”
Now juggling both motherhood and her successful sitcom, Bowen admits to needing help during the week — but insists her household be nanny-free on the weekends.
“I have three kids. I should know how to take care of them,” she reasons, laughing that her decision to be completely hands-on has changed her Monday morning mindset.
“We’d be like, ‘Here comes Saturday. It’s going to be a long-ass weekend,'” she shares. “All we did was poop patrol for 48 hours. When Monday would come, we’d be like, ‘Thank God.'”
Joking aside, Bowen is proud of her accomplishments as a mother-of-three and insists she often even surprises herself when it comes to her commitment to her children.
“I’m constantly shocked that I am successfully taking care of this family and that I’m capable of putting their needs in front of mine,” she reveals. “I don’t think I could have done it in my twenties.”
— Anya Leon