Kate Middleton Reveals She Was Secretly "Terrified" During Her Post-Birth Photo Call With Prince George

• In her first-ever podcast interview Kate Middleton got candid about parenting.
• During the discussion, which aired on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, the royal admitted to feeling "terrified" during her first post-baby photo call after giving birth to Prince George in 2013.
• Kate also shared her earliest experiences with George and the reason she's glad she and William didn't learn George's sex before the birth.

Kate Middleton (opens in new tab) is getting real about one of the biggest pressures for royal moms (opens in new tab): The post-birth photo call.

In case you need a refresher, Kate has posed for photos (opens in new tab) with all three of her children just hours after their births. The traditional royal baby photo calls have all taken place on the steps of the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital (opens in new tab) and Kate has looked flawless (opens in new tab) and poised during each and every one.

During a candid new interview on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby (opens in new tab) podcast, however, Kate admitted (opens in new tab) that it was "terrifying" to step out for her first post-birth photo call after welcoming Prince George in July 2013 (opens in new tab).

“Yeah, slightly terrifying, slightly terrifying, I’m not going to lie,” Kate told host Giovanna Fletcher of stepping out for the photo call to debut George to the world.

Kate went on to explain why she decided to keep the post-baby photo call tradition (opens in new tab) alive, in spite of her own anxieties about it:

"Everyone had been so supportive and both William and I were really conscious that this was something that everyone was excited about and, you know, we’re hugely grateful for the support that the public had shown us, and actually for us to be able to share that joy and appreciation with the public, I felt was really important. But equally it was coupled with a newborn baby, and inexperienced parents, and the uncertainty of what that held, so there were all sorts of mixed emotions."

During the interview, which was scheduled to promote her "Five Big Questions" survey (opens in new tab) on early childhood development, Kate also opened up (opens in new tab) about other pivotal moments in her parenting journey. Here are some highlights:

On holding Prince George for the first time:

"Amazing, amazing. It is extraordinary as I’ve said. How can the human body do that? It is utterly extraordinary actually. And he was very sweet. And I was also sort of relieved that he was a happy, healthy boy."

On not learning George's sex before he was born:

"I didn’t know, no it was a surprise. But also seeing…you know your husband, William, and things like that. Seeing the pure joy of his face it was really special."

On her first night after giving birth to George:

"Everything goes in a bit of a blur. I think, yeah I did stay in hospital overnight, I remember it was one of the hottest days and night with huge thunderstorms so I didn’t get a huge amount of sleep, but George did, which was really great. I was keen to get home because, for me, being in hospital, I had all the memories of being in hospital because of being sick [with acute morning sickness] so it wasn’t a place I wanted to hang around in. So, I was really desperate to get home and get back to normality."

On what really happened during that iconic moment when Prince William put George's carseat in the car for the first time:

“We were like ‘What do we do?… in a swaddle?’ ‘How’s this supposed to work?’ We’d even tried to practice with a little baby, like a little doll, at home but you know it just never works out the way you planned it so it was quite hard to do that on the world’s stage, but no, he did a very good job."

Listen to Kate Middleton's full interview with the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast here (opens in new tab). 

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