‘Boy Meets World’ star Danielle Fishel reveals tough first pregnancy: ‘Sometimes it’s miserable’
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Danielle Fishel can’t wait to finally meet her baby.
The 38-year-old is expecting her first child with husband Jensen Karp and her pregnancy hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing.
“Sometimes it’s miserable,” the “Boy Meets World” star told Us Weekly on Thursday. “I mean, I’m eight and a half months and when it’s over, it will not be over a day too soon, I can tell you that much.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}DANIELLE FISHEL: MY CURFEW WAS 10 P.M.
Still, Fishel insisted she hasn’t taken the positive aspects of being pregnant for granted.
“I didn’t have any morning sickness,” she shared. “I haven’t had indigestion. I’m still comfortable sleeping. I’m sleeping pretty well. So I’m really lucky that way, and yet, it is still very uncomfortable to just be lugging around this much extra weight and just to be leading with your stomach. Once you really start showing, there’s no hiding it, so it’s the topic of conversation everywhere you go. You always feel like you want to give a positive and uplifting answer, and some days, you’re just like, ‘I’m over it. I’m just super uncomfortable and I’m over it.’”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I had one of those days yesterday,” continued the actress. “I feel like sometimes he’s clawing his way through my ab muscles, like, just separating my ab muscles, trying to peek his way out. And I’m like, ‘There’s an alien growing inside of me, but an alien that I already love.”
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Fishell told the outlet her husband, 39, has been super supportive during her journey to motherhood, adding he gives her daily foot and belly messages.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“[They have] been keeping my skin soft and I haven’t dealt with stretch marks yet,” she said.
Fishel revealed that her former co-stars have also provided a helping hand. She noted Rider Strong, who played Shawn Hunter in the series, has been giving her plenty of advice. He welcomed a baby named Indigo with his wife Alexandra Barreto in 2014.
Will Friedle, who starred as Eric Matthews, also lives close by with his wife Susan Martens. Fishel told the outlet the couple frequently “check in to see if they can bring anything.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fishel announced in January she was expecting on Instagram.
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“I’m eating for two,” she wrote at the time, as reported by the outlet. “I’m napping with wild abandon. Baby shoes. Baby clothes. (I’m shopping). I’m nesting. I’m reading books. I’m madly in love with my husband. I cry at commercials. I’m a walking cliché. I’ve got baby apps. I’m confident. I feel inadequate. I’m showing one day and the next I’m not. I’m nervous. I’m excited. He’s due in July. We can’t wait.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fishel is best known for playing Topanga Lawrence in "Boy Meets World," which aired from 1993 until 2000. Back in 2014, Fishel told Fox News her parents worked hard in giving her a normal upbringing despite her high-profile career.
“I come from a really, really good strong family,” she said at the time. “One of the things that have kept me grounded is my parents were never pushing me to be in the entertainment industry. In fact, they really discouraged it. They only relented because they figured, ‘OK, she’ll go on a couple of auditions, she’ll get bored and won’t want to do it anymore.’
“My parents, as proud as they are of me, my identity was in my family and my identity as an individual was never based on what I do for a job,” continued Fishel. “It’s my profession but it’s not who I am. That makes it easy for me. I don’t live in L.A. I don’t go to a lot of events. My friends are the same friends I’ve had since junior high and high school — that helps. I don’t get carried away in the idea of what Hollywood is. It’s a job and my life takes place outside of it.
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“I had chores growing up. I had to clean up after the dog in the backyard and I had to make my bed every morning. I got an allowance. My curfew was 10 p.m. all the way through high school.”
Fishel would go on to reprise her character in the reboot “Girl Meets World,” which aired from 2014 until 2017. In the series, Fishel played a mother, a role she quickly embraced.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Playing a mother on the show and not being one myself, I didn’t know how naturally that maternal instinct was going to come out,” said Fishel. “And what was shocking to me was how quickly I felt so protective of the kids and wanted to see them do well and succeed. I know how to read all of their faces so well. I can tell when something is bothering them. I think maybe I TV-mother them a little too much for their own liking.”