What Ireland Baldwin is looking forward to about motherhood

Ireland Baldwin is having a baby, and as she awaits the arrival of her daughter, she has been transparent about the journey of an expectant mother — including both the highs and the lows.

Baldwin announced she was having a baby in a New Year’s Instagram post, and has since appeared in an interview, and posted on her social media, about her real-life experience with pregnancy. Her daughter will be named Holland, as she looks to carry on the family’s tradition of being named after countries.

The 27-year-old spoke about looking ahead to parenting on the Girlboss Radio podcast this week.

“What I’m most excited about is really more centered around a lot of things I really wanted in terms of stability as a child myself that I didn’t have,” the mom-to-be said. “What’s kind of exciting is I get to raise this little human and do things completely differently than what I was taught was the norm.”

“It’s cool that I get to unconditionally love this person and do my best to make her as equipped for this world and badass as possible.

“We’re naming her Holland. I’m Ireland, so another country name because we wanted to keep that consistent.”

Pregnancy has its struggles too

Though there is no doubt the model is looking forward to motherhood, she has revealed on social media that she is simultaneously struggling.

“Pregnancy is hard,” she wrote on January 18 on Instagram. “It takes so much out of you. I wasn’t ready for that [...]I underestimated just how hard pregnancy would be on my mind and body.”

Baldwin reached out to her audience and let them know that it’s okay to show your true self when you’re going through a hard time because that’s how people relate to each other.

“And it’s ok to be REAL and post highlight reels. It’s ok to be happy and sad at the same time,” she wrote. “I am grateful but I am struggling and that’s perfectly ok.”

She explained that her upbringing left a void that she felt needed to be filled, and that she hoped having a child of her own would help with that.

“I grew up with a very jaded perception of what love really looked like and I always wanted to have a child of my own with someone who would treat us right and love us unconditionally,” she wrote.