Beyoncé Opens Up About Her Difficult Pregnancy and Life with Three Kids

From pregnancy complications to finding a work/life balance, Beyoncé gets real about motherhood.

By: Amanda Mushro

From the red carpet to performances for thousands of screaming fans, Beyoncé always looks flawless. However, when she and husband Jay-Z welcomed their twins, Sir and Rumi, the mom-of-three admitted that her pregnancy and delivery was far from glamorous.

In her new documentary, Homecoming, Beyoncé admits that just about everything with her twins was unexpected.

“I was supposed to do Coachella the year prior, but I got pregnant unexpectedly,” she said in the film. “And it ended up being twins, which was even more of a surprise.”

Queen Bey also opened up about how quickly her body changed and the life-threating symptoms she developed while pregnant.

"My body went through more than I knew it could," she said. "I was 218 pounds the day I gave birth... I had high blood pressure. I developed toxemia, preeclampsia."

When doctors detected that one baby’s heart had paused several times, Beyoncé, who had already been ordered to bed rest, had an emergency C-section. The twins spent some time in the neonatal intensive care unit before they were able to go home with their parents and big sister, Blue Ivy.

After the twins came home, Beyoncé began prepping for her own return — her now infamous, headlining performance at Coachella — but the hours of work did a number on her recovering body.

“In the beginning, there were so many muscle spasms and just internally my body was not connected,” she said and added that she had to rebuild “cut muscles,” from her C-section. “My mind was not there. My mind wanted to be with my children.”

Any mom can relate to the desire of just wanting to be with your kids and the struggle of balancing your work with family duties.

“I would dance, go off to the trailer and breastfeed the babies,” Beyoncé said. “The days I could, I would bring the children.”

From the audience, fans saw a triumphant return to the stage for the superstar; however, the end result brought Beyoncé to a personally important realization

“I learned a valuable lesson,” the singer said. “I will never, never push myself that far again. I feel like I’m a new woman in a new chapter of my life and I’m not even trying to be who I was.”