Brooke Shields and Oprah

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Brooke says the delivery was far from ideal. She was induced and after 24 hours, she had an emergency Caesarean section. The umbilical cord had become wrapped around the baby's neck, body and leg. In her book, Brooke compares the C-section to being gutted like a fish on a crucifix.

"And what had happened was my uterus, during the 24 hours of labor, had herniated," Brooke explains. "So they literally took it out and put it on this tray with force like I have never imagined in my life. And I see people—I say it's like pile driving, you know, wrestlers sort of pile driving —over my stomach…You see them over the curtain, and they're using all their weight, and they get her out and she gets taken away. I don't see her at first. I didn't stop bleeding. And so the baby got taken away, given to her father, and the doctor sort of comes around to me and says, 'We may have to do a hysterectomy.'

"And I'm thinking, 'No, no, no. You can't take my uterus away from me now.' And he said, 'Well, I want to watch you for 24 hours and see if you will stop bleeding.' And thank God he put all the pieces back in the places where they needed to be and sewed me up and eventually my uterus did stop bleeding and he did not have to do an emergency hysterectomy."