The rest of the night was pure fun. Our first dance, to Journey’s “Open Arms,” was special, and I have a beautiful picture of Charlie kissing my hand and dipping me. We fed each other cake; I tossed my garter, and guess who caught my bouquet? Charlie’s teenage daughter! Later that night, Charlie and I checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel. He carried me through the door. Our limo driver captured the moment with one of those inexpensive throwaway cameras. While cheap, it did the job and caught a special moment on film.
After spending two days in the hotel, we flew to Anguilla for a picture-perfect honeymoon of sun, sand, and sightseeing. One day, we took a boat ride, and when Charlie introduced me to the captain as “my wife, Denise,” I melted. I loved the way that sounded. I couldn’t believe how drastically my life had changed in the eight months since our first good-night kiss. It kept getting better and better, like the best dream ever.
4
ONE OF THE first things I did as a newlywed was to change my last name to Sheen. I decided to use my maiden name only for work. I also sold my house, gave all my furniture to my parents, and moved into Charlie’s house. I’d stayed there countless times before, but something was different, permanent, and hilarious when I pulled into the driveway with all my clothes. I turned to my four dogs in the back and said, “Well, we’re home.”
Even though everything in the house was done in black, from the marble floors to the carpet to the kitchen, I made the transition easily. Charlie thought it would bother me to live in a home that had the look and feel of a busy bachelor pad, but other than wishing for a little more warmth, I was fine. As I repeatedly told people who asked that question, including my husband, the past was the past. I’m someone who’s able to start fresh, whether it’s moving on after a disagreement or moving into a new home. It’s healthier.
I did encounter some strange features, such as the bedroom door that was bulletproof. A fire pole was in the closet (which one of our cats fell through, but he was okay) in case a quick escape to the ground floor was necessary. And the house had a panic room. But with the right attitude, I saw these as perks. Hey, I’d never felt safer when I slept. The home itself, though, was great, and we could stay there in plenty of comfort until we saved up enough money to move. I know hearing me say that we had to save might sound strange. But we were like anyone else. We had to watch our pennies and put money in the bank if we wanted to move into a home that would be ours.
I’d heard and read and been warned that the first year of marriage is the most difficult. I also talked to my mom about the issues she and my dad had when they were starting out, at ages seventeen and twenty-one, with a baby, and compared to them, I counted my blessings. But the truth was, Charlie’s and my first year of marriage was the best and easiest and the only good year. I thought, “Well, if this is the toughest it’s going to get, marriage is going to be a piece of cake.” I was naïve.
But couplehood did seem to suit us. That year, I worked on a few different projects, including a small part in Richard Curtis’s charming romantic comedy Love Actually, and Charlie took meetings for new projects. After a few of them, he zeroed in on one specific TV series, a new CBS sitcom called Two and a Half Men. One day he handed me a script and asked for my opinion. I curled up in a chair, started to read, and an hour later declared it a no-brainer. “This is a gem,” I said. “You have to do it.”
Charlie agreed and shot the pilot, which I thought turned out exceptional in every way, from the writing to the on-screen chemistry Charlie had with his costar Jon Cryer. The network thought so, too. Just before CBS’s midsummer announcement that the show would be on their fall lineup, Charlie went to work on Scary Movie 3 in Vancouver. In June, he returned home for our one-year anniversary, and we celebrated with a romantic three-day retreat to the Montage hotel in Laguna. A few weeks later, I visited him in Vancouver. The next day after our reunion I woke up with a surreal yet strong premonition that our romance the night before had left me feeling something I’d never experienced.
That’s right. I had a sense that I was pregnant. Since I’d never been pregnant before, I had no idea what it would feel like, or if at this early moment, it would feel like anything at all. Nevertheless, I felt something, not physically, just a gut feeling. But I shrugged it off and went about my business, which is indicative of my personality. I told myself it probably wasn’t anything other than my imagination.
After Charlie finished the movie, we squeezed in a getaway to Turks and Caicos. Pining for some relaxing alone-time before he started production on Two and a Half Men, which we knew at the outset would require long hours, we spoiled ourselves with spa treatments and workouts. I got massages, took yoga classes, and did Pilates, though instead of feeling rested and invigorated, I felt the opposite, queasy and light-headed. I wanted to blame it on the heat, but a little voice in my head said, “It’s not the heat”
I ended up opening my laptop, searched “early pregnancy,” and read the symptoms.
Bingo.
I had every symptom except puking. Thank God!
I didn’t tell Charlie yet, but when we got back home, I called my sister and asked her to send me a pregnancy test. If I went to the store and bought one, it would end up on the front page of Us magazine. When the test arrived, I took it in the bathroom, and waited. Within a few moments, I saw an extremely faint line, indicating positive. However, since the line was barely visible, I didn’t believe it. Too impatient to wait for my sister to mail me another one, I hurried to the pharmacy and bought ten tests. Yes, I bought ten. I peed on all of them, too. And guess what? I saw the same damn faint line in every single one.
Why was it so faint?
Why not one way or the other? Why did it have to be wishywashy? I wasn’t a wishy-washy person. I was a one-way-or-the-other person.
Frustrated and anxious for clarity, I called the 800 number on the back of the box and explained the situation to the woman who answered. Without pausing to think about possibilities, she said it was positive—even if the line was faint. A line was a line, and that meant I was pregnant.
“Even if I can barely see it?” I asked.
“Yes, even if you can barely see it,” she said.
“It can’t be negative? How can it be positive if it’s barely there?”
“Ma’am, even if it’s barely there, it’s positive.”
I still wasn’t convinced. After hanging up, I thought, what does she know? I needed a second opinion—I took the pee tests, lined those fuckers up, and I called in Charlie, who saw the pee tests set up across the bathroom counter and funnily enough didn’t think I was nuts for having so many of them. Like me, he held each one up to the light as I filled him in on my conversation with the woman from the 800 number. Then he turned to me and nodded. The next day, my doctor ran a blood test and confirmed what the 800 lady and Charlie had already acknowledged. I was pregnant.
It was great news, but completely unexpected, and it took me a bit to get over the shock. I left the doctor’s office and went straight to an audition. In fact I had to hurry there, so I wouldn’t be late, which was typical of my tendency to overbook myself when I should probably be canceling appointments. But I was in such a daze from the news that I still can’t recall what I auditioned for. My head was up my ass and, needless to say, I didn’t get the part.
But sitting in traffic gave me time to actually process that I was pregnant, and I’ll tell you what, I got excited—and not just because I would soon be able to drive in the car-pool lane. I believe things happen for a reason, and even though we didn’t set out to have a baby at this time, it was obviously meant to be, and I was thrilled. I was suddenly part of something much bigger than myself. I believe children pick their parents, and I was so happy that this unborn soul was choosing Charlie and me. I was also surprised at how easily I got pregnant. I guess it’s true what they say—it can happen the very first time!
And how did Charlie feel about becoming a daddy again? Of the two of us, I was the more spon
taneous, the one who didn’t always plan every hour of the day, the one who could roll with the punches. Charlie balanced me. He was the voice of reason, the schedule maker, and the one who had everything in order. I don’t know if he had a touch of OCD—okay, he was OCD—but whatever I lacked, he had. For him the pregnancy was a shocker, and though it was a serious left turn from the few years we intended to spend before thinking of starting a family, he came around, flashed his trademark smile, and let me know he was excited that we were going to be parents.
PART FIVE
Mommyhood
1
FOR THE FIRST three months, I kept the news of my pregnancy a secret from everyone except my immediate family and a couple close friends. We wanted to keep this as private as possible for the first trimester.
These days, my life is a running conversation on Twitter; I share details about my day or post questions about the issues I’m dealing with to my two million followers, and they respond similarly. I like the give-and-take, and also the connection to a larger community. I look forward to the information and support there. But in the early months of my pregnancy Twitter hadn’t been invented, and if it had been, I wouldn’t have tweeted, “Hey, I’m four days pregnant!”
You hoped for the best during those precarious first three months, but you never knew. That’s what made keeping the news quiet, other than to a few close girlfriends that I knew could keep a secret, such a unique period. I was excited and nervous, depending on the sensations I experienced as a new life developed inside me. The girlfriends I shared the news with were parents, and they were great to talk to about becoming a new mom.
Thank goodness it takes nine months to have a baby. Can you imagine the havoc if it happened instantly? I needed every minute of those nine months to contemplate the changes ahead, read books, learn about what was happening with my body, commune with Charlie, create a nursery, and prepare for the biggest responsibility of my life. I went through stages, though at the beginning I simply tried to adjust to the idea that I was going to be someone’s mom, and that Charlie was going to be a dad (for the second time); we were going to be parents. Would we be good parents? Would I be a good mom? What would my baby be like? Would it be healthy? Would I be a room mother one day? My questions were endless.
At times, I found myself thinking about it in a cosmic sense, the way you do when you realize bringing a child into the world connects you to the larger picture of motherhood, all the generations that had come before you and the jobs they’ve done to raise their children. I also did my share of self-centered navel-gazing and wondering how my stomach was actually going to fit a baby. But I knew many women had done this before me.
One thing I did do immediately was, on the day I found out I was pregnant, I began putting shea butter on my belly, breasts, hips, and thighs to prevent stretch marks. With all that grease, I ruined my share of bedsheets. But guess what? No stretch marks! As for the traditional side effects of pregnancy, I had them. Early on, I battled serious fatigue. I’d be driving and want to pull over and take a nap. I feared something was wrong. But my mom and my doctor assured me this was normal. My body was telling me to slow down.
My biggest challenge was morning sickness, or the thought of it. I was nauseous a few mornings or it was just in my head. I just hoped and prayed I wouldn’t puke due to a lifelong phobia of throwing up. I know—it’s bizarre. And for the longest time, I had no idea why I was afflicted. I’d run out of the room if someone was sick. I didn’t want to catch it. Or I’d ask if the person had the flu or food poisoning and hope it was the latter. I was in my early twenties before my mom explained that as a little girl I followed my dad into the bathroom while he was sick and saw him puke. I thought he was dying, she said, and it affected the rest of my life.
It pisses me off that something I don’t even remember has had such an impact on me, but it has, and my phobia, formally known as emetophobia, presented a unique challenge during my first trimester. In theory, I don’t think fear should ever hold people back from something they want to do, and I wasn’t about to let my fear ruin the initial months of my pregnancy, when my body was changing as a result of the miracle taking place in my belly. As I said, I was challenged. My mom had had terrible morning sickness with her pregnancies, and my sister had puked with hers, too. I hoped and prayed my experience would be different, and it was. But it was a matter of mind over body, not a lack of nausea, and my methods weren’t anything you’re going to find in What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
No, when I was hit with a wave of nausea, I’d say, “Bitch, get ahold of yourself. It’s just in your head.” I also ate tons of lemon Popsicles after hearing that lemon calmed an upset stomach. I heard the same about ginger candy, and despite burning the hell out of my throat, I popped them into my mouth like vitamins. I also had crackers and soda next to my bed at all times. But really, saying “Bitch, get ahold of yourself” was most effective.
My sense of taste and smell also changed. I loved salmon and usually ate it a couple times a week, but once I got pregnant, I couldn’t even smell it without feeling my stomach turn. To this day I still can’t eat salmon. The same was true of broccoli, my favorite vegetable. (The good news is that I can now eat broccoli.) Also the scent of a certain Dyptique candle called Mimosa, which I’d enjoyed for years (still can’t smell that crap!) made me sick. I do enjoy other scents by Dyptique. As for cravings, I reached for the pickles. I couldn’t get enough of them. And I ate ice cream almost every night before bed. Such weird, random things, but in looking back, I think they were God’s way of warning that life was going to change with a child and I’d better learn to deal. I’d have to give up some favorite things, but I’d discover new pleasures. It makes sense.
I worked out all through my pregnancy. I got in my cardio on the elliptical, lifted light weights, and did lots of walking. My doctor told me not to get my heart rate up past 140, so I bought a heart monitor and didn’t push it. In general, I learned to listen to my body and only did what felt good, a good rule to follow all the time, not just when you’re pregnant.
By August, Charlie was working on his first season of Two and a Half Men. Unlike movies, sitcoms allow for pretty regular hours, which is convenient if you have a family, and is the reason many actors look for jobs on TV series. But as with any project, early on the sitcom led to long, hard days as everyone searched for the right notes. The network was doing everything it could to give the show a big launch, and between getting it right on camera and with promotion, Charlie put in extremely long hours. We didn’t see each other as much as we had over the past year, but there was a payoff. Two and a Half Men was an instant hit, and we added to the celebratory mood by releasing a statement about our own wonderful news. It felt as if the sun were shining directly on us. Things couldn’t have been better.
But can things be too good? Is there truth in the adage about something being too good to be true? I don’t think so. I try to live in the moment, and in the same way, I don’t worry about what’s in the past. This took some time for me to figure out. I don’t want to be one of those people who ask, “What if?” I think about what I have to do that day, and now that I have two kids, I relish those wonderful, easy daily moments; they go so fast. Everyone has his or her share of moments when the sky darkens and the storm sirens wail. Sometimes you bring the problems on yourself, while other times it’s simply fate and the path we are chosen to be on.
In my case, it was definitely beyond my control. I had just been cast in Elvis Has Left the Building, a comedic road picture starring Kim Basinger and John Corbett, and I was telling my friends that director Joel Zwick should be acknowledged as an enlightened male in Hollywood for sticking with an actress who was four months pregnant, when that first storm cloud rolled in. My mom was diagnosed with kidney (renal cell) cancer. My mom called and matter-of-factly gave me the details of her diagnosis (doctors thought it was stage 2, an early stage). She filled me in on her surgery that was being scheduled, as well
as her reassuring rationale that life had to go on despite this curveball. “And it will go on,” she said defiantly, to all of us, including herself. Now, I’m sure privately with my dad this news crushed her, but her speech was my mom being strong for her family. She was our rock and that’s how she handled bad news. Charlie offered similar words of support, and at my mom’s urging, I made two trips to the movie’s location in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was hard going away, but it let me focus on something other than the scary situation she faced. I could feel my tummy growing tighter and my body changing yet again as I entered the midpoint of my second trimester. Amazing. Even more miraculous, I thought, was the timing of my mom’s cancer with my pregnancy, something I continued to think about years later as I began healing. That she would get this diagnosis at the same time I was creating a new life struck me as extraordinary intersection of fate. I wanted to see meaning in it, but I couldn’t think too much about it. As I was growing up, my mom would at times tell me with every death, there is a birth. I had to get that out of my head. (Ironically, two weeks before my mom died, my youngest nephew was born. Since I believe children choose their parents, I wanted to believe they also had something to do with the timing of their arrival in the world.) When I called to check on my mom at that time, she ended up asking about me. I was more amazed by this sense of selflessness when I looked back years later, yet it wasn’t so much selflessness as it was the force of motherhood, a power I’d come to know. As much as she was looking forward to being a grandmother again, she was still being a mom to me and taking pleasure in seeing me prepare for this new role myself. We had wonderful conversations.
Real Girl Next Door Page 9