Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?

pregnancies at this point, and could certainly tell whether anything was amiss. I decided not to mention the bun in the oven until absolutely necessary, assuming that productions of this scale have certain liability concerns—I worried that if the producers knew they would replace me at this point in the game. On the other hand, if I made it through enough rounds to start showing, they would have to work the pregnancy in, like when a soap opera star has to spend three months of shooting behind a potted plant, or is “suddenly impregnated by her own evil twin.”

I called Cleo, who had been just as nervously waiting to hear from Tim as I had been. She was thrilled.

“I’ll miss your graduation,” I said, heartsick at the words. “It’s your choice. If you want me there, I will turn down the show.”

“Are you nuts?!” she yelled at me. “This is so exciting! You have to do it.”

With Cleo’s blessing, I moved ahead and followed the shows orders to the letter, and prepared my family for my departure. The older boys were happy to see me go: Peik because he was always happy to see me go anywhere, and Truman because he was my partner in crime. The younger two didn’t really get it—being three and four, they hadn’t yet grasped the concept of time—and I knew that their collective amnesia would pave over any hurt feelings in the long run. I packed a couple of suitcases and my own sewing kit, and moved into an apartment six blocks from my home. I could literally see the boys’ bedroom window from mine. We could have used a flashlight to communicate, if they’d only known where I was.

Moving into the apartment with its tiny bedrooms and even tinier bathroom was a snap after my six-people- to-two-bedrooms lifestyle. Many of the other contestants were used to living in houses and had trouble getting to sleep in the middle of noisy Manhattan. I had that edge from the beginning, as I am indifferent to regular sleep patterns—and can fall asleep practically anywhere and wake on a dime. Years of babies do that to you: I haven’t slept through the night in ten years. I wear sleep deprivation like a navel-baring cocktail dress—anywhere, anytime.

Our first challenge started the minute we walked into our apartment: make an outfit out of something in the suite. For as much as I had been looking forward to the challenges, tearing apart my apartment was not exactly a thrill, especially when we returned exhausted to the demolished apartment that night, one designer already Auf Weidersehened off the show. Though tired, I was proud of my sexy little mattress ticking coat with its bathmat collar: It was the first garment I had ever sewn for someone other than myself. In a way I think that my lack of formal training was an advantage. I wasn’t restricted by the “right” way to do things, so I just figured out the fastest or easiest way. Other contestants wouldn’t dream of leaving raw edges on the inside of a garment because they had been taught that it was unprofessional. I had no such hangups, and could better spend my time executing more-intricate ideas. As long as my design passed the runway test—does it look good to the judges at thirty paces?—then finishes be damned.

If you think what the designers go through on Project Runway looks hard on TV, in real life it’s even harder. Trust me. First of all, “this week’s challenge” did not give us a week to recover each time. We were given a new assignment every day or two, back to back to back. Remaining creative was nearly impossible at that pace, and it’s no wonder that contestants started to crack so early in the competition. I’m not very good at faking how I feel, and since I was newly pregnant and prone to fatigue, my goal in the first few challenges was to keep my head low, design quick, execute quicker, and take a nap while the other designers were fussing over how to properly drape their fabrics. Of all my six pregnancies, this was turning out to be the easiest, and I was determined not to whine or complain about any of my symptoms. I don’t get morning sickness, but I do get bone tired, so any bit of sleep I could grab I went for it. This, unfortunately, led to endless footage of me sacked out like a princess. It’s not exactly a great way to make friends with a dozen or so people who already want you to go home so they can move up. Luckily, I didn’t care a bit what other people thought, and if my ability to get the work done fast made them nervous, so much the better.

The days were long. Work invariably finished at midnight, and then we were woken up at six thirty by a camera in the face and the entire day would start all over again. I exacted a modicum of revenge by sleeping naked and throwing off my covers in the morning just to torture the cameramen.

Elimination days between the challenges were a bit easier physically, but much more draining emotionally. The fifteen-minute runway and judging segment would take the full day to shoot, during which time no one had a clue whether they would be getting das boot or not. There was generally a mad dash to finish the garments before it was time to dress the models; then the waiting began. Naturally, there was a camera catching every expression as we all internally freaked out about what might happen on the runway. The minute the elimination segment ended, the next challenge was announced and the gerbil wheel started squeaking all over again. This cycle repeated about a dozen times in a six-week span, and added to it was the minor detail that I was increasingly pregnant.

EVERY TIME HEIDI STOOD ON THE RUNWAY AND INTRODUCED A “SPECIAL guest,” I would say to myself, “Please, let it be Peter. Please, let it be Peter.” Was I thinking that there was going to be a “Fashion Inspired by Architecture” challenge and Peter was going to be the guest judge? I was too tired to be rational. For the “Every Woman” challenge Heidi announced that there would be special guests and just as I was saying to myself, “Please, let it be Peter,” my mom appeared. I burst into tears. I’m not sure whether I was happy to see my mother or sad not to see Peter, or just being a hormonal, sewing freak of nature, but there she was, along with a mother or sister for every designer on the show.

I would have to say that conceptually this was the worst challenge of the entire season. None of these everyday women knew that they had come to New York to walk on the runway in “designer fashions.” They were told that they would be doing interviews about us, sharing stories of how wacky we were as children, and showing pictures of us butt naked on a bearskin rug. Many of the women, especially the larger ones, were uncomfortable with the idea of strutting their stuff on national TV, and they simply weren’t prepared to be that emotionally naked. Plus, the designers were all so exhausted by the time our relatives arrived, we were all skating on thin brains. The competition was a combustible situation in the finest of hours, but the combination of body-conscious women and hot-headed designers was lethal. The episode was a bit of a disaster, with the least-svelte women crying on the runway because they were so uncomfortable in what they were wearing—fashion can be cruel that way, but even crueler when the wearer is someone you love.

Reality television is real. The producers never tell you what to say or what to do. They end up with hours of footage from many different cameras, and they will edit and distill personalities for the sake of telling a story, but generally the camera doesn’t lie. If Omarosa claims she’s really not a bitch, and she was merely edited to look that way, you can rest assured that she really is a bitch. During your waking hours cameras are on and you’re miced— it’s really not possible to be someone that you’re not. You become so accustomed to having a camera in your face you actually forget it’s there.

On day two of the Every Woman challenge, we all went to Tavern on the Green as a special treat for the mothers and sisters before they would be completely humiliated on the runway the next day. My mother and I were standing on the brunch buffet line as Michael Kors approached with his mother.

“Mom,” he said, “this is Laura and she has five children!” Being an only child, Michael is fascinated by my brood and always introduces me this way.

“Well, I’m actually working on number six,” I said, patting my belly. It just slipped out. I had no problem telling a complete stranger I was pregnant, or springing it on the entire production team in such an offhand way, but I had completely forgotten that my mother was standing next to me and that I hadn’t yet taken the time to tell her. She stared at me, mouth agape, and took a few seconds to regain her composure.

“What?” she finally managed to croak out. “Oh, Laura. You are not serious!”

By her shock and awe you would have thought I was an unwed teenager under her parents’ roof. I’m not sure whether she was horrified about me having yet another baby or about the way she found out, but it made great television. It was just about then, I later learned, that the producers started referring to me as the “story line.”

MY PERSONAL LEAST FAVORITE PART OF THE SHOW WAS FLYING TO Paris. Under any other circumstances, I would have been thrilled to have a first-class ticket to Paris. Everyone else was so excited, I’m sure I looked like an ingrate, but it just felt wrong not to tell my husband I was leaving the country. And, let’s face it, flying over the ocean is no treat when you’re forty-two and pregnant. I think I left my ankles someplace over