In 2002 I was cast in the Fox series 24, and it changed my life. I’d been building a career as a movie actor and now suddenly I was a TV star, living in a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills. I had been on the cover of the Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair and got invited everywhere. I won’t lie—it was glamorous for a girl from Newcastle, Australia.
I met a magazine editor named Dan the following year. Two years later we were married in Sydney. We lived a bicoastal life with each of us working, but I was 34 and dreamed of starting a family.
In 2008, after infertility struggles, our son Oscar was born. We moved to a small town north of Manhattan and settled into a colonial with lots of trees.
We wanted another baby, but it wasn’t easy. After two IVF attempts and one miscarriage, I finally gave birth to beautiful twin boys in the spring of 2011. I had been terrified of a potential C-section for some reason, so being able to deliver them naturally was a relief to me. Even the fact that Sam and Julian had arrived six weeks early couldn’t dampen my joy. We were a happy family of five.
Sam and Julian had to stay in the NICU until they could swallow and breathe on their own. Their NYC hospital was almost an hour’s drive from our home. My three-year-old needed me at the house but so did my two in the hospital. I was pumping breast milk through the night and bringing it in a cooler each morning to the hospital. It was exhausting.
The NICU is full of tiny babies and there is a constant cacophony of beeping sounds. When I left the NICU at night I’d continue to be haunted by the beeps. And there are beeps everywhere! Phones, microwaves, alarms, washers, computers, cars—every beep would set my heart beating faster.
The NICU emphasizes the danger of germs. Germs can make babies sick. Bad germs can even kill them. The stress was giving me a manic energy that seemed to intensify. Dan was upsetting me. He didn’t seem as worried about the babies as me.
After two long weeks the twins came home. Each new visitor was instructed to wash their hands, take off their shoes, and leave their phone and bag at the door, since they were covered in germs. I knew I sounded paranoid, but my babies had been in the NICU after all.
We were fortunate to have a full-time baby nurse, Bibi. She really understood me and my worries. Dan didn’t appear to. He said my concerns were pointless as the babies were so healthy and thriving. He kept saying, “nothing is going to happen.” But that frustrated me. He didn’t understand the dangers. He was becoming my enemy. My aunt came to stay a few weeks and I also had a full-time nanny. But I still needed more help. It didn’t make sense to anyone.
Bibi wore scrubs. I liked it because they looked clean. I ordered scrubs in all sizes for guests. Every visitor now had to have their cell phone and bag bleached with Clorox wipes. Soon I added booties and hair nets to the routine.
Friends came by with food, especially my girlfriends Natalie and Jennifer. I was concerned and told them I would probably need a marriage separation. They nodded and listened but didn’t say anything. I also told them the enormous tree outside our living room had to go. It was leaning and might crush the house at any minute. Also, we had to remove every piece of furniture from our basement as there might be a flood. The fact that we lived on a hill several hundred feet above the river was irrelevant.
Natalie helped me pack up the basement. She mentioned that I seemed to be struggling. I said that things just needed to get in order and then I could relax. She said I seemed to say that sort of thing a lot, but that as soon as one thing was fixed, something else had to be taken care of. I assured her that wasn’t the case. I really just wanted to get everything out of the basement before the floods.