Hilary Duff felt like she lost her "identity" when she became a mother.
The former Disney star gave birth to her son Luca, now seven, when she was just 24 years old and she has admitted she really struggled at first because none of her friends had babies and she was finding it difficult to be anything but a parent.
Speaking on ‘The Motherly Podcast’, she said: "I’d say it was a little isolating in the beginning because I didn’t have any friends that had babies yet.
"But I had been working for such a long time that it felt like a natural step for me and I always knew I wanted to be a mom. I always knew that was going to be my number one priority in life. So I felt ready on some fronts and a little scared on others, but I really only got scared once I was pregnant.
"I was really young so I was just like terrified of what was going to be like moving through my body. I actually wanted to have a scheduled c-section. My doctor was like, ‘No sorry. You cannot. You have to try.’ Which I was really appreciative for because I had a great birth. I did feel like after I had him I lost a big chunk of my identity for like, maybe the first year and a half, but I don’t think that was a negative thing. It was at times I was sad about it but you know it’s full on. Like I don’t remember setting him down for the first three months of life."
But things couldn’t have been more different when she gave birth to her daughter Banks – whom she has with her partner Matthew Koma – eight months ago.
She explained: "With Banks, I was so much older and had kind of a different support system around me and I feel much more in tune with my body and I’m a lot healthier I think than I was then. I just wanted to try. I did a lot of research."
However, being a mother of two brought new challenges as she was trying to figure out a way that she could balance her work, her son – whom she shares custody of with her ex-husband Mike Comrie – and a newborn.
She said: "I was pregnant and flying home like almost every other weekend to see Luca. Then this year I had a newborn–a 4-month-old–and I was going back to work, you know nursing and trying to juggle that. It’s really hard."
Hilary Duff lost ‘identity’ as a mother
