New mum Rebecca Lim on bonding with baby, who he looks like and growing to love herself more

In the middle of our phone conversation, Rebecca Lim’s baby interrupted with a high-pitched, newborn squall. Thus, it came to be that he gave his very first quote to the media, to wit: “Wah, wah.”

“He wants to say hi,” quipped Rebecca, who was in the midst of breastfeeding.

The 37-year-old Mediacorp actress and her husband, Matthew Webster, welcomed their first child, a son whose name they have yet to reveal, on Jan 30. Lim checks out of the hospital on Friday (Feb 2) to head home, where she will have the help of a confinement nanny as well as her mother, who has moved in with her.

“It hasn’t really completely sunk in yet – I think it will sink in once I get home and truly recuperate,” she said, about the fact that she now has a brand new human being to be responsible for.

The first moment she laid eyes on him was a blur after 14 hours of labour – “I really cannot remember what was going through my mind then, I think nothing – I just wanted the stitching to be done” – and after a couple of days, it’s still surreal.

“It’s a very strange feeling,” she added. “It’s like, you’ve been so excited to meet this little person, and, they say the motherly instinct will kick in once you deliver the baby, but I think it’s only just starting to kick in, after three to four days. The first few days, you’re in absolutely pain, recovering, and thinking, ‘Is he eating well? Why do his bowel motions look like that?’ It’s more worrying than really bonding.”

Now that the baby isn’t all purple and shrivelled any more, "I find it fascinating that his face changes every few hours. I watched my niece grow up and I understand how quickly babies grow, but by the hour, like every time he comes back after a checkup or something, he looks a little bit different in some way”.

Does he look more like his mum or dad? “I have no idea,” she mused. “Sometimes he looks like me; from some angles he looks like Matthew; from some angles he looks like one of (Matthew’s) parents; and from some, a bit like my dad.”

But, the “first comment” from relatives and friends “is always, ‘Wow, he’s huge’. And then they go on to ask his weight: 3.8kg”.

After going through the labour process as a first-time mum, “They say you’ll forget and want a number two, but I think, not so soon!”

She added: “I wish I had been a lot more zen going into it – some women are very zen with their exercise balls and breathing techniques – but I was not.”

While Lim is focusing on recovering from the birth – “I still have quite a few red spots on my face, which are burst blood vessels from all the pushing” – her husband, the new dad, is “having a great time”, she said.

“It’s quite adorable to see him looking at our son. You can see a totally different side of him. Before giving birth, I knew he would make a great father. Now, I’m excited to see how he’s going to step into that role.”

In a more reflective turn, Rebecca told us that beyond welcoming a child, the whole journey from pregnancy to motherhood has been an opportunity to grow more in touch with herself.

“I never truly thought that I could be a mum. I never truly wanted to be a mum. I was very content being the fun auntie. I never thought that my life would reach a stage where I firstly would want to start a family with someone, and then eventually really have a family with someone,” she shared candidly.

Instead, “It was always: Work, work work. ‘What can I do to be better?’”

This period “has been a journey of self-discovery. In this pregnancy journey, what was unexpected for me wasn’t an incident but the entire few months where I really had time to just chill, be by myself, prepare myself psychologically and also to really understand who I am”.

She explained: “Before I was pregnant, I always based the value of my self-worth on my work: The roles that I took up; the endorsements that I had; who I am as an actress; my award nominations; et cetera. When I was pregnant, all that had to stop. I didn’t have any work other than events and some endorsement shoots. It was very quiet. I had to deal with the insecurity. That really helped me grow and understand who I am inside, and really love who I am as Rebecca Lim the person, as opposed to Rebecca Lim the actress.

“It was an unexpected and humbling journey of self discovery. Very, very humbling! You strip all that away, what’s left? Do you still love who you are without all the glitz and glam? I had good and bad days. Some days I was like, ‘I can’t wait to get back to work.’ Other days, ‘Maybe this is the time to take it easy, one step at a time, and slowly enjoy this journey.” Now, “I’m a lot more content and confident of who I am as a person”.

We pointed out that, after all, she’d been working nonstop for nearly two decades, and her pregnancy was the first time she’d had any real me-time – not to mention the first time she had carte blanche to eat whatever she wanted.

“Yes! The great thing about pregnancy is, I can eat anything I want!” she exclaimed. And, “the question that everyone has been asking me is, ‘How much weight did you gain?’ And then they are shocked when they hear the answer is 20kg”.

But, it has been liberating not having to worry about whether she will fit into the gowns her stylists picked out, and the sample-sized clothing from brands. “It’s also about not being so hard on yourself through the entire pregnancy,” she said, joking that with Star Awards coming up in a few months, it will be a toss-up to see if her stylist can find an outfit that will allow her to turn up at the red carpet event. She hasn’t yet decided if she’ll attend.

“I’m just going to take it easy, see when I’m ready, and then come back (to work),” she said.