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Mandy Moore compares giving birth to 'acid trip'

The actor recently welcomed her first child, a son.
Mandy Moore gave birth to her first child, a son, in February.
Mandy Moore gave birth to her first child, a son, in February.Mandy Moore/Instagram
/ Source: TODAY

Just weeks after giving birth to her first child, Mandy Moore is opening up about her "harrowing" labor experience.

The "This Is Us" star sat down with prenatal chiropractor Dr. Elliot Berlin for his "Informed Pregnancy Podcast" and offered fans an intimate glimpse into the birth of her son, August Harrison Goldsmith.

Moore recalled the night she went into labor and said she wasn't convinced that it was actually happening at first.

"I'm all snuggled up in bed and we're watching reruns of 'The Office' and I'm like, 'Hmm, I feel a little crampy' and my husband got sort of wide-eyed," she said, adding that the couple then opened up a contractions timing app. "I'd had crazy Braxton Hicks for weeks and every time I walked I would feel lots of contractions, so I was dubious that this was the real thing and sure enough it was."

The couple then contacted Moore's midwife and doula, who arrived soon and suggested that Moore get in the bathtub with her husband and get a glass of wine to relax through the early stages of labor.

"I think I took a sip of wine which was so weird because I hadn't had any whine in like 10 months," she said.

Moore's original plan was to have an unmedicated home birth, but several hours later when labor started to ramp up, she realized it was time to go to the hospital.

As she progressed throughout labor, Moore realized that the experience wasn't anything like she'd expected.

"I felt super prepared," she said. "And all of that just went out the window. For me, it was just all about instinct."

Moore likened the process of giving birth to being on an "acid trip" and said it was a very "insular experience."

"I was in my own head doing my own thing. I could hear people, I could hear suggestions, and sometimes agree with them and sometimes I was like, 'No, no, no, I just have to stay the course of what's feeling good for me,'" she said. "I felt like it was going to be somewhat more participatory with other people, that I would see their faces and be awake and alert and listen to their suggestions."

During labor, Moore got to the point where she couldn't get an epidural and was feeling a lot of pain and discomfort.

"Labor was intense, it was grueling, it was harrowing. Getting to 10 cm took me from 4 to 10 in the a.m...it was a lot," she recalled.

Ultimately, the actor said she got through labor by honing in on herself and what her body needed.

"My eyes were closed and I was on my own. It was my own narrative, my own story and everybody else was just sort of in the background," she said.

When all was said and done, Moore and her husband Taylor Goldsmith welcomed their son on his due date.

During the interview, Moore also opened up about her entire pregnancy and told Berlin that she dealt with constant nausea throughout her first trimester.

"I woke up nauseous, I went to bed nauseous. I just sort of stayed on the couch and binge watched bad TV and tried to get my mind off it," she recalled. "I threw up at least once, maybe a couple times each day."

As she shifted into her second trimester, the first-time mother saw the "light at the end of the tunnel" and began to feel much better. She even described the last few days of her pregnancy as "pretty fantastic."

Even though she had a pretty rough beginning of her pregnancy and a tough labor, Moore said she feels blessed to have her baby boy with her now.

"I'd do it all over again a million times," she said.

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