SOURCE: iHOLA! Magazine MEXICO
DATE: NOVEMBER 2007

Here’s Thalia’s iHola! interview in English.
Thank you Jacqui/Jacqueline for the translation!



iHola!: You are already a mom Thalia, how does it feel being a mom?

Thalia: Really, it’s the biggest thing that ever happened to me, in my whole life. It’s like officially your getting the name of a mother to belong to the female gender, it’s like to get into another level, it’s an indescribable experience, and it’s powerful which puts you in an incredible energy in your life. It’s something which makes you change as a human being in an incredible way.


H: Was the pregnancy you imagined it would be?

Thalia: The truth is that I never imagined it, I just let it come since it’s something that you can’t predict because it depends on many things: your baby’s soul, the way you are, the union between you and your baby. The pregnancy had been for me an organic movement which had been easy for me. It’s a simple and natural impulse, because it’s just love.


H: Tell us how was it like the hours before your daughter was born?

Thalia: It was a child birth which lasted 33 hours¡¡ the contractions started on Friday, October 5. We were here in our house, and at 3:00 a.m., I couldn’t resist the pains, so I asked Tommy to take me to the hospital (Mount Sinai of New York), but I just had 1 centimeter of dilation, so I was told by the doctor to go back home. We stayed in our apartment in Manhattan and I resisted the pains until 6:00 p.m. of the next day, at that hour, I returned to the hospital and I had dilated just 0.5 centimeters more, so I asked the doctor to put me in anesthesia, and I, in all my pregnancy had been strong and I said I were to have my daughter by natural child birth, ha, ha, yes of course¡¡ Until you are there and you feel that pain, you can see what it’s about, but well they put me in anesthesia and the child birth lasted more hours, although for that moment I was more relaxed it was an hour and 40 minutes of being pushing and pushing until she was born.


H: Was Tommy with you in the child birth?

Thalia: Yes, he was with me in my pregnancy and in the child’s birth. Tommy was that man I have dreamt who is; loving me, supporting me, taking care of me, making me laugh, crying and praying with me.


H: Tell us how do you live the moment in which your daughter is born?

Thalia: Well, when she was born the doctor put her on my chest, so I gave her the welcoming greeting to this world and I said to her " God bless you my little daughter, here we are your dad and me praying for you and nothing will be lacking for you, we will love and protect you forever" and in that moment like I had asked the doctor to give me the scissors so to cut the umbilical cord, and I asked Tommy to put his hand on my hand and we did it together. That is the biggest experience in this world, because you know it’s the moment in which that baby whom you had for nine months inside you becomes in an independent human being, with her own life.


H: Was your husband nervous in the operating room?

Thalia: No, I think like he watched everything through the lens of a camera. That worked for him as a filter and allowed him to endure the fact of being over there. He even told me that for him it seems to be like watching a Discovery Channel episode.


H: Describe us the first moment you saw Sabrina Sakae?

Thalia: The first time we saw was her hair, she has a lot of hair. She was already here with us, so then that was when we started to cry, it was a cry which was mixed with laughter of happiness.


H: How and when did you decide for the names for your daughter?

Thalia: We decided it almost immediately since the moment I knew I was pregnant. Tommy and I, we both liked Sabrina’s name which means princess, and in my pregnancy I got a book of baby names and I found the name Sakae which in Japanese means prosperity and when I united the two names, I love the meaning. Furthermore, I thought in her own independence, because if in the future she doesn’t want to know anything about the fame of her mom or about the last name of her dad, she is Sabrina Sakae, which sounds like a name with a last name, although, she is really Sabrina Sakae Mottola Sodi.

 

H: Has your husband give you a special gift for the birth of the girl?

Thalia: Tommy spoils me too much, and even more now. He filled my room with white roses, he and one of my best friends fixed all my room at the hospital with pink color, the sheets, the chairs, the towels, my robe, the dishes and glasses everything, even I don’t know how he did it but he ordered my favorite food from my favorite restaurant . I´ll never forget those details.


H: Did your daughter receive special gifts from your friends?

Thalia: Yes, many and all of them are very nice. Celine Dion, for example has sent us a complete kit to disguise the baby of fairy with a very warm note, Billy Joel, sent us organic clothes which doesn´t damage the planet , Lili Estefan and Raul de Molina (from the TV show El Gordo y la Flaca) sent us a very elegant and pretty baby stroller, Gloria and Emilio Estefan sent us a box filled with very pretty clothes, and my fan clubs they have sent us thousands of things, clothes, costumes of rabbit, and even a portrait with a little boy who is asking me for the Sabrina Sakae’s hand, it’s very pretty¡¡¡


H: You look happy Thalia.

Thalia: I’m happy, I cry because of the abundance. I cry and I thank God for giving me everything and also to my daughter. I tell to my Lord, maybe you have a very important plan for her, because she comes to this world filled with blessings. Really, when I open my daughter’s closet I thank God for so many abundance and for so many gifts we have received, but I have chose some things that she really needs and we packed all the other things to send those to people who really need all those things.


H: In what way does the birth of Sabrina influence your relationship as a couple?

Thalia: Tommy and I we are very united, and we are always together like twins but Saki has come to make our relationship stronger now that we are going to have ten years being together. It’s like to start all over again, but knowing that our love is true, that what we feel is very real and the best proof is our daughter.


H: What crossed your mind the first time you took her in your arms?

Thalia: I said "Thank God for listening to me, in sending me this beauty, you know I wished for her. And I have a very complicated pregnancy since I was five months pregnant. I started to feel exhausted, to have indigestion. I could not do exercises because I didn’t feel good, and the child birth was very long, the incredible thing is that you forget all that in the moment your daughter is born. It’s like if you were injected by a mental block which makes you to say I want another kid right now. It’s a craziness¡¡


H: Really, do you want to have another kid soon?

Thalia: No, no, I want to wait at least 2 years and a half more because I want to be focused on this baby, my husband, my family and to keep on with my projects. What I can say to you is that after the child birth I respect more my mother who had five daughters.


H: Your mom says your daughter is a Thalia II. What do you think about it?

Thalia: Not only my mom, but Tommy and everybody.


H: In that moment her husband showed us two pictures which were taken when Thalia and Saki were both had 15 days old.

Thalia: Aren’t we like two drops of water, two peas in a pod? Really, the similarity is amazing, the same dark hair, the same face; she is a Thalia II without a doubt, even though I also see in Saki many things from Tommy. Talking in musical terms Saki is a perfect remix of us both.


H: How is Sabrina?

Thalia: She is a very intelligent girl since she was born. The first time her dad talked to her, she looked at him and we saw that she was analyzing him like if she said "Oh you were the one who talked to me while I was in my mother’s belly, you are my dad". And maybe it was only an impulse, but when she was five days old as I was giving her a baby bottle and she by herself took it with her hands and she started to eat without my help, furthermore, she is very clear in what she wants, she only cries when she is hungry, or when she wants a change of pampers, or when she is tired of being in a place. She has a very strong and defined personality. She is beautiful I spend the whole day looking at her little nose, her little mouth counting her tabs, kissing her, enjoying her, my daughter is a passion, an obsession. I love her.


H: Do you breast feed her?

Thalia: Of course and let me tell you that I can even open a milk factory, because thanks to God I have milk even to donate. I think that’s why my daughter is very big and she is only one month old. I’m going to celebrate her first month with a mini cake and a candle.


H: Which language are you going to use to talk to your daughter?

Thalia: I talk to her always in Spanish and her dad does it in English so our daughter will be totally bilingual.


H: Do you know who are going to be her godparents?

Thalia: Really no, we want to enjoy everything step by step and we haven’t thought about the baptism yet.

 

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Party 2

H: How will Saki’s childhood be similar with your own?

Thalia: We both have a mother who is in-love with her little girl, as my mother was with me, don’t forget I was born eleven years after my youngest older sister. I was for my mother a new illusion an injection of life and for me Saki has come to show me something which I didn’t see before. Before I can say my life was dry, yes I was filled with blessings, with many job opportunities, my public’s love, singing, acting, being successful as an industrialist, but something lacked in my life, as if it’s like to make the best meal and you don’t put salt into it, so in my life, the salt and flavor which was lacking, she has given it to me. Now I see life more colorful, and I’m discovering the world all over again through my daughter’s eyes.


H: And in what way would you like her childhood be different from yours?

Thalia: I would like that she would have a more relaxed life. I started to work since I was 9, and I have not stopped until now. I liked very much of what I did when I was a kid, but maybe in my childhood and in my teenage life was the years when I worked more. I would like that she has a life far from the spectacle’s world, a healthy life, to do exercises, to travel knowing other cultures. I would like that she goes to a University and she studies for a career.


H: Well, you have a very successful career?

Thalia: Yes, but it’s a career in which you have to pay a very high price, you are not with the people whom you love because you have other events, if you want to go to movie theaters with your daughter a paparazzi will follow you, you can’t go to a park, it’s a life with a lot of stress, and you have to pay a very high price. I would like that she has a more anonymous life, and that she studies for a career. I could not study or take up Biology and I love it, my father was a scientist and I had the wish to study. Another important thing that my daughter is going to have is that she will grow up with a father. I had the misfortune of losing my father when I was 5 years old, and Saki is very close, united with her father, and he is a big influence, power over her which calms her. To me it’s very nice to know that my daughter is going to have which I didn’t have, a loving father who is going to take her for a walk to the park, or to the zoo and who is going to tell her stories. I think that it’s going to heel the pain I had inside of me because of my father’s death.


H: Don’t you have any memory of him?

Thalia: Of course, I have. I remember that instead of talking to me, he told me poems and verses, things like "The princess who is sad, the princess? That was his way in communicating with me. The funny thing is that now I like to invent verses for Saki which rhymes with her name.


H: Has Sabrina remind you of the good memories of your childhood?

Thalia: Yes, sometimes I remember when my mom changes my clothes and the cold I used to feel when I was put in the bathtub and the verses my dad used to say to me, all those are like flashbacks of my childhood.


H: What are your thoughts in teaching your daughter?

Thalia: I want that she will be a strong girl with a very high self esteem, that she wont be afraid of taking adventures, to come out and to live a life and to be open to the good things of this world.


H: Have all your sisters called you up to congratulate you?

Thalia: No, all of them except Laura.


H: Do you feel bad about it?

Thalia: I don’t understand why in such a magical and special moment in which a new human being comes to this world, she has not even sent a note for my daughter saying "Welcome, niece, your auntie Laura". A call was not necessary, just a note or a white flower for my daughter.


H: We know you are very united with your mother, how is she with your daughter’s birth?

Thalia: Do you know what? My mom, well she is my mom, when she calls me by phone she always asks me how is the Thalia’s myth? She loves my daughter in an amazing way. And that special love which we both have for each other is not just because we share the same DNA, but from our souls and my mother’s soul and my soul have many things in common and maybe that union between us both comes from many years ago, from other lives, and I think that same union is what she is feeling with my daughter.


H: What does Tommy’s kids say about their new sister?

Thalia: They are happy, Sarah (who is 25 years old), she makes letters for her, she buys books to read stories to Saki and Michael, (who is 26 years old) he loves to come to see her and he says he wants to be her nanny.


H: Do you see Tommy in a different way after Sabrina’s birth?

Thalia: Yes, I see him as the warrior. I always had dreamt, showing me his most sensitive side, he is more loving, more sweet, and he has more shine in his eyes filled with happiness when we three are together.


H: How do you see yourself in these moments as a mother-wife or as wife-mother?

Thalia: Definitely, as mother-wife because the pregnancy is something that surpasses everything.


H: What have you done to recover your weight?

Thalia: To breast feed my daughter, there is nothing better than it and even though I’m in the quarantine, I’m already wearing my clothes. In the child’s birth I lost weight, and I have lost more weight in these moments, but I’m not in my normal weight yet. Later I’m going back to do my exercises and my yoga but now I cannot yet.


H: Aren’t you afraid that the public will stop seeing you as the sexy girl and now they consider you as a mother?

Thalia: No, because I can do both things in my career, in my shows, in a photo shoot. I’m going to keep being the Thalia whom my public want to see but in my house, I’m the wife, the mother, the daughter, the sister.


H: How is a day in your life after Sabrina’s birth?

Thalia: I wake up at 6:00 a.m. to feed her, to do with her, her exercises of baby yoga, and after that I spend the whole day here. Here I have the breakfast, the food, and the dinner, and I spend the whole day looking at her, enjoying her.


H: Do you think of coming back soon to work or will you take a time to enjoy your daughter?

Thalia: Fortunately, I kept working while I was pregnant, and I keep doing it until now. I have my radio show. I’m preparing my new album. It only lacks to put the voice, to release it next year. I still have my project to release for some stuffs for the home, and also another line of clothes which I’m going to release at the end of 2008.


H: What do you sing to Sabrina?

Thalia: Everyday I invent songs for her and also as I told you, I invent verses for her with her name.


H: Which is your biggest dream in these moments?

Thalia: I have been very lucky and very blessed by God, so I’m just thankful and in some ways I try to give back all what I have received and I think I already know in what way I’m going to do it. To help kids who are unprotected, who were abandoned and they will be the youth of our planet. When you live thinking of your child, the babies are totally dependent on their parents, something changes inside you. I think I’m going to collaborate with some associations or maybe I’m going to create my own association to help homeless kids.


H: Have you thought of adopting a child?

Thalia: Yes, we have thought about it. Tommy and I, we would like to have one or two children later to make a big family with an adopted baby. But this moment we want to enjoy Saki.


H: How would you describe your life in this moment?

Thalia: As a perfect moment.


H: What would you like to ask in this moment?

Thalia: Just one, to have more life to keep living and feeling the same thing.

END