Actress Lisa Vidal talks about combining nursing
with her acting career by Robina Riccitiello
 Lisa Vidal has nursed her sons in dressing
rooms, on airplanes and even on a Bronx street corner while filming a
movie. The busy actor and mother of two sons managed to fit
breastfeeding and motherhood into her frenetic work life, much to the
surprise of friends who said it couldn't be done.
"People used to always say, "You can't have
it all." And I would say, "Yes, I can," says
Vidal, who
can be seen currently on "Third Watch" on NBC. "I've
always thought, "I can do this." Whenever a situation would come
up, I'd find a solution. When you want something so badly, you just
do it. You don't think about how hard it's going to be."
That meant bringing her newborn baby - who is now 7 - with her to
work sometimes, even if she had to improvise on babysitting.
"When my career was just starting to take off, I used to bring
Scott to auditions with me, " Vidal says. "I would find a
friend - someone I always would see at auditions - and she would
stand out there with him while I went in (for the audition)."
When her husband's job took the family from New York to Florida,
Vidal and her newborn son commuted back and forth to New York for
auditions and acting jobs.
"My agents were panicking. How was I going to have a
long-distance career?" Vidal remembers. But she
managed. "I
would take all my bags and baby stuff and get on the plane and just
go. I just didn't think about it that much."
Vidal began shooting the film "I Like It Like That" when her
son Scott was just five months old. Before shooting started, Vidal was
still nursing and had lost most of her pregnancy weight, but was still
out of shape. To get ready for that role, she got up every morning at
5:30 a.m., nursed her son, handed him to her husband and then went
jogging. She also joined a gym that had a babysitting service and
would check on her baby via closed-circuit TV while she was working
out.
Vidal brought the baby on the set of "I Like It Like That"
every day and her grandmother acted as her nanny, caring for Scott
whenever Vidal was filming. But having a baby on the set transformed
the crew. Many of the crew members took turns holding Scott and, she
remembers, "By the end of the movie, everybody on the set was my
nanny."
The film crew worked around Vidal's nursing schedule. Sometimes she
took breaks to feed Scott. Sometimes, Vidal says, "I would start
leaking and everyone would come running with tissues. "Vidal
nursed her son wherever she happened to be and sometimes that was
right on the street corner where they were shooting the movie.
"I was literally sitting in the middle of the Bronx and I would
pop my tit out and start breastfeeding at 168th Street and
Findley," Vidal recalls with a laugh. "I was wearing these
little bitty outfits and I had these big breasts - which I don't
have naturally unless I'm breastfeeding, of course."
Vidal has also appeared in the movies "Fall," "Night
and the City" and "Delivery Boys." She played a lead
role in the Lifetime movie "An Upstanding Citizen," and in
"Naked City" on Showtime. She also had a recurring role in
Fox's "New York Undercover," and was a series regular on
"The Brian Benben Show" on CBS and on ABC's "High
Incident." Vidal also played the lead in the ABC After School
Special "In the Shadow of Love." Vidal has guest starred on
many shows, including "Law and Order," "The Cosby
Show" and "Miami Vice."
Vidal says she has always worked with film and TV crews that were very
supportive of her other role - as a breastfeeding mother. On one
show, the first assistant director told Vidal that his wife had just
had a baby, so he wanted to make sure she knew it was okay to take
nursing breaks when she needed them. Vidal says filmmakers are more
and more willing to accommodate special circumstances, like nursing
moms.
"As long as you have the right attitude and you're not
obnoxious about it, I think people understand, "she says, noting
that she always made an extra effort to time the nursing so it
minimized inconvenience for the film crew. "People are much more
nursing-friendly. That comes from the moms, too. You have to present
yourself that way and let them know it's a priority."
Vidal says that women are gaining more power in Hollywood and, as they
do, they shape the way things are done in the movie business.
"Women are having more of a voice (about the importance of
family) and it's working. People are listening, "she says.
"We work and have to look good. But we're mothers, too, and we
have lives and we have families."
Combining motherhood and an acting career is hard enough that many
actors wonder whether they can do it.
"It's really a juggling act, "Vidal says, who talked to
Breastfeeding.com on a recent Sunday morning while the family raced
around getting ready for church. "A lot of my friends who are
actors are just now getting married and they're petrified of the
idea of trying to juggle it."
Vidal admits she has occasionally considered putting her career on
hold while her children are young, but she always concludes that she's
doing the right thing.
"It's a really wonderful career. I don't work 9 to 5.
Sometimes I'm home for months at a time and it's not often that I'm
gone, "Vidal says. "I don't think I could be happy if I
wasn't doing what I've always loved. For me, working is a release
and then I'm happy to be home with my kids and be Mommy."
But it is hard work, she says, explaining, "I'm up early in the
morning and I'm in bed late at night reading scripts. It's not an
easy task, but I couldn't do it any other way."
Vidal says her close-knit family has helped her succeed as an actor.
Her husband is very involved in their son's lives and her parents
and two sisters help out too. When Vidal lived in New York, she often
relied on her grandmothers and even her brother, when she needed help
with her children.
"I've got an incredible support system, "Vidal says,
referring to her husband and extended family. "I've got a
really great husband who is really, really involved. It's 50-50.
He
does so much. He runs around with the kids and does a lot that I can't
do when I'm not here."
Vidal says she has worked regularly, even after her second son, Max,
was born in mid-1998. When Max was just six weeks old, she traveled
with him to Seattle to shoot a Lifetime movie. She breastfed Max for
more than five months, but eventually stopped because she was shooting
a half-hour comedy show and, although she brought Max and a nanny to
the set, she often missed his feeding because she was rehearsing or
taping the show and she would end up having to pump. Vidal says she
had hoped to breastfeed Max for a year, but "at least I gave him
5 1/2 months of good breast milk."
Vidal says she knew she would breastfeed her own children, after
watching a friend nurse and seeing how the mother and baby bonded.
"I was always fascinated by seeing people breastfeeding. I would
think, "Isn't that amazing? You can feed your baby with your body.
That's how God meant it to be,"" Vidal says. "I was just
determined to breastfeed because I thought it was the best thing for
the baby."
Vidal credits family support and La Leche League with helping her
succeed after a rocky start.
"I had cracked nipples. I had terrible engorgement, "she
recalled. "My mother came to the house when I got really engorged
and she put me in the shower and rubbed my back, trying to release the
milk."
Vidal hadn't rented or bought a pump and, once engorged, suddenly
realized the value of having one at home.
"My husband got up at 5 in the morning and went all through
Manhattan, looking for a breast pump. Nothing was open and he didn't
get back till 7:30 in the morning, "Vidal said. "He rented a
huge hospital pump, so you can pump two breasts at the same time.
I
remember at the time, we didn't have a whole lot of money and it was
very expensive and I thought, "I wonder if I'm going to need this
thing." But it wound up being wonderful."
La Leche League helped Vidal solve the cracked nipple problems and,
after a painful first two weeks, she breastfed her first son for eight
months. Echoing the shock of many first-time nursing mothers, Vidal
says she was surprised at how hard it was to get started nursing.
"I wasn't aware how difficult it can be and how painful it can
be," Vidal says. But, she adds, "After those two
weeks, all
the pain just disappeared. We got into our own rhythm and it was such
a pleasure. I love it when they fall asleep and they're just snoring
and saying, "Wow, that was so good.""
Vidal says she felt good knowing that she was giving her baby the best
food available. She found that she continued to eat well and take care
of herself because she was nursing. By the time her second son was
born, Vidal was living in Los Angeles and had plenty of support from
friends there.
"When I had Max, my friends Lindsay and Betsy came over and they
were helping me move my boobs (to get the baby latched on
right)," she says. "It was such a girl thing."
Vidal says she enjoyed breastfeeding and found it easy once she got a
good start, but she thinks it's important for women to recognize
that not everyone can breastfeed.
"I have a good friend who could not do it and I told her, "That's
OK. It's not for everyone. "To put negative pressure on women if
they can't breastfeed is really bad, "Vidal says.
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