When your professional life is strutting down runways and modelling designer clothes, people might expect that your motherhood life looks equally as polished.
But for Coco Rocha, being a mom is all about anticipating the worst, and enjoying the ride.
The Toronto-born supermodel is one of the stars of a new Gap ad celebrating motherhood, along with Liv Tyler, Candice Swanepoel, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ali and Cass Bird — and their kids.
The video, which was directed by Tyler, is in support of Every Mother Counts (U.S. texts will result in an automatic donation of $5). The non-profit organization, dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every woman, is one that Rocha has worked with extensively in the past.
"It’s such an empowering thing to bring all moms together, and make sure that all moms have the opportunity to really bring a baby into this world safe and sound, like most of us have the opportunity in the States and in Canada," Rocha says in a phone interview with HuffPost Canada.
She notes that her own birth experience with baby Ioni, who just turned two, went the way she hoped it would, but that she refused to be too hard on herself if it didn't work out as planned.
"Moms or soon-to-be-moms put a lot of pressure on themselves," she says. "I wanted a natural birth without any medication, and I told myself that if that wasn’t the case, maybe I'd need an epidural. If that came to that, not to worry. If it came to the point that I needed a C-section, not to worry.
"As long as that baby comes out healthy, as long as you and baby are OK on the other side, then really, that’s all that matters."
"As long as that baby comes out healthy, as long as you and baby are OK on the other side, then really, that’s all that matters."
She takes a similar approach to actually being a mom, explaining that she anticipated the difficulties, and that's helped her get through them.
"I told myself, 'Alright, you’re going to have no sleep, it’s going to be an aggressive first few weeks.' I made myself plan that it was going to be pretty difficult, so I was prepared. But Ioni was a really good baby from day one.
"When she does something different, I realize she’s training us to treat her differently than before. If there’s some mistakes here and there — and there’s going to definitely be a mistake — that’s OK, it’s a learning curve. And I've taught myself that I really have to go with the flow."
Considering Ioni has already posed in a major fashion campaign and is the "owner" of an Instagram account with 56K followers at age two, there's no question her famous mom will have some words of wisdom when it comes to beauty.
"As a woman, sometimes we stress on always being of the moment and that is a lot of pressure, especially for young girls. I think as long as you’re secure with yourself and happy with yourself, it really doesn’t matter what the world around you thinks," Rocha muses.
"But I think it’s a lot about the choice of words that we use. In certain eras it was very important for people to let girls know they were pretty and beautiful and cute and sweet... and you totally can use those, those are great things to let girls know.
But also point out, 'That's really smart of you,' 'Look at how much confidence you have,' 'Look at what great conversational skills you have.' Boys can be strong and manly and handsome — but you should say how smart they are and kind to their sisters and moms and dads."
Take a look at a few of the gorgeous shots from the Gap campaign below:
