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The entire issue is that women bear a disproportionate share of the hard work. Birthing, carrying, the whole thing - it's hard work.

I really thought when I was pregnant with my first that it wouldn't affect my work at all; it would just be a baby that grows up on set. And I was absolutely wrong. For women, the high point of their career and needing to have babies just don't really go together.

Women face enough pressures and challenges in a workplace that is still depressingly biased against a female's success. Add to that, the fact that the very thing many women I know find most rewarding (having kids) is now frowned upon.

Women need to understand that it is possible to stay in the workforce. A lot of women decide to take a back seat in their professional careers even before they are pregnant or are ready to have children.

Some women work while they are pregnant, but not me. That was a choice I had made. That's when I took a break. Men can work at whatever stage they are; whether they turn daddy, they still have their own thing. But women can't afford that because by being mothers, they have to be there for their kids.

I don't know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work.

I'm particularly fortunate to be in a position where I can bring my child to work and be able to get good child care. Not a lot of women have that.

There are women who literally squeeze a baby out of their bodies or get cut open in major surgery, have a human being, the next generation of the human race pulled from their bodies, and within a couple of weeks have to go back to work, because if they don't, they can't pay their bills. Something's wrong with that.

In some countries, as many as 91 percent of women have no one at their side to assist them during labor and delivery.

Because our generation has waited so long to have babies, we feel we've 'discovered' something that women have been doing for thousands of years. I have no illusions that I will be in the same situation as the average working mother. I'm not trying to prove anything - I just want to have kids.