“Tom made me a Woman”

Nicole Kidman says becoming a new mother in her 40s has been rewarding but bittersweet.The Oscar-winning actress said the arrival of her daughter Sunday Rose in July was a very different experience to motherhood in her mid-20s with adopted children Bella and Connor.
“At 41, it’s a more painful love,” she said. “It’s almost like my heart is stretching – I’m feeling all these muscles stretch with emotion. “It’s a beautiful love but there’s a lot of fear and pain for her life – and for Bella’s and Connor’s life.”
Kidman said her second marriage – to Australian country music star Keith Urban – had enabled her to find a deeper love. “I didn’t foresee it – that you can meet someone who you have a deep and more profound love with,” she said.
“You move into a stage where you’re able to be a more fuller person in your relationship.”
In the interview with the November issue of US magazine Elle, Kidman stressed that her comments were not meant as a slight to her ex-husband Tom Cruise and said she wished nothing but happiness for him and his wife Katie Holmes.
“I want to be really careful with that because I don’t want to take away from 11 years with that man that were really important,” she said.
“Really, for our kids – they were amidst a lot of love. It wasn’t bad and now we’re amidst a more evolved love. “I don’t mean to take away anything with Tom, but I would hope that he has the same thing – I know he has the same thing with Katie.”
Kidman said she did not regret marrying Cruise when she was only 22 years old. “Would I want my kids to get married at that age? No,” Kidman said.
“But that was an extraordinary thing for me.
“(Tom) taught me an enormous amount – as a girl into a woman.
“Absolutely, I would do it again.”
Kidman said she was determined to protect her family from publicity – a major factor in the couple’s decision not to sell photos of Sunday after her July birth.
“When it comes to my kids, I’m just like a lioness,” Kidman said. “I’m like, ‘No one gets near my babies. “That’s why we chose not to sell photos of her. “We just want to have our little cocoon.”
Kidman graces the cover of Elle’s Annual Women in Hollywood issue.