Kristin Cavallari Explores the Fantasy of Birth Plans & the Reality of Childbirth on ‘Let’s Be Honest’

On Let’s Be Honest, host Kristin Cavallari recently got candid about her three very different birthing experiences, from the expectations she once had about “the perfect birth” to the messy, exhausting, and transformative reality of becoming a mom.

Cavallari explains that listeners have been asking her for years to share her birth story, and she’s finally decided it’s time. “I’ve never really publicly talked about them, at least in detail,” Cavallari says. “So that’s what we’re gonna do today. I’m gonna tell you guys about all three of my birthing stories and those new days when the kids were teeny tiny and that whole phase of my life.”

The fantasy of a perfect birth

Like many women, Cavallari once imagined herself handling labor in a serene, natural way. Looking back, she admits that her actual experiences were far from the calm scenarios she had once envisioned. “I would do things differently, I think, today if I were to have a baby today,” she says. “In my perfect head, I’m like, if I had a baby today, it would be, you know, like a water birth, and I would do it all naturally.”

But just 25 years old during her first delivery, Cavallari was quickly faced with the intensity of labor pains and opted for medical support. “I remember at the time being like, I have nothing to prove. I know I’m strong, and right now, I’m dying. I want the epidural,” she explains. That choice set the tone for the way she would eventually approach all three of her births—with pragmatism, honesty, and zero guilt about doing what worked for her in that moment.

The reality of childbirth

Even with the epidural, Cavallari describes the process as grueling. She recalls that the medication eased the contractions but didn’t eliminate the sharpest parts of the pain. “It took away the contractions, but it didn’t take away the feeling of my vagina literally feeling like it was ripping in half,” she says. For her, childbirth wasn’t the sanitized version often depicted in movies or filtered on social media. It was raw, painful, and unforgettable.

She’s also quick to remind listeners that no two women—or even two pregnancies—are the same. “Pain is different for everybody. Everyone’s pain tolerance is different, but everyone’s experience is just so different,” she explains. Across her three births, no two were alike, and each came with its own lessons in resilience and letting go of control.

The isolation of early motherhood

Beyond the delivery room, Cavallari paints a vivid picture of what life was like once she brought her firstborn, Camden, home. “I was so tired,” she says. “I was kind of on Camden’s schedule. If he took a nap, you know, it was pretty likely I was taking a nap, and that was it.”

Those early months were isolating but also deeply formative. With no close friends who had children and minimal prior experience with newborns, she had to figure everything out in real time. “I mean, I had no idea what I was doing,” she admits. “I had only been around a newborn baby, I think, one time. And so I was just going, you know, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing in those early days.”

The unspoken recovery process

Cavallari also lifts the curtain on something often overlooked in conversations about childbirth: the postpartum recovery. “Recovery after the first kid is legit,” she says. “I lived with those ice packs on the coochie coo. It was brutal. The first one is brutal.” While the experience became easier with her second and third children, she doesn’t sugarcoat how intense it was the first time.

Her candor about recovery—and the mix of humor and honesty she uses to describe it—helps strip away the polished narratives many new moms feel pressured to live up to. 

Learning together

What makes Cavallari’s stories so resonant is the way she ties her personal growth to her experiences with her children. Talking about her firstborn, she reflects, “Cam completely changed my life. I was learning how to be a mom with Cam. You know, it was like Cam and I were learning together as we went along for the ride.”

By sharing the gap between the fantasy of birth plans and the unpredictable reality of childbirth, Cavallari offers both solidarity and reassurance. Every mother’s journey is unique, and that’s perfectly okay.

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