The Daily Telegraph (March 8th 2007)

Now and Gwen

Gwen Stefani is running on baby time. While her glam squad pretty her up for a string of TV interviews in a swanky London hotel, Stefani's people have shoe-horned regular baby feeding breaks into her itinerary.

However, nine-month-old Kingston James McGregor Rossdale doesn't operate to military-precision international pop star schedules. After his latest feed break he doesn't want to be separated from his mother while she talks about herself. Again.

So Stefani enters the room on gravity-defying heels with her babe in arms. As she perches Kingston on her lap it's clear her baby's daddy Gavin Rossdale has created a mini-me.

"He's exactly like his dad," Stefani, pictured, says.

The baby has not only won the DNA lottery, he genetically has music in his tiny veins.

However, talk of anything in Kingston's future beyond, well, the next hour is off limits for Stefani. Even the teeth popping up in his lower gum are horrifying her, and not for her sleep deprivation.

"I am so devastated about how quickly it's going by, he's already so big," Stefani says, bouncing Kingston on her knee. "He's like a kid now compared to what he was. I'm so holding on to the baby thing. I don't want to admit he's even getting his next set of teeth, I'm like, no, he's not! It's so sad!

"I'm in denial he'll ever be more than something that doesn't walk or speak," Stefani continues. "Probably when he goes to school or gets hurt for the first time and you have to see it through their eyes it's probably going to hit me, but for now I don't feel like it's changed me all that much, it's just made my life much more fun.

"He's definitely my favourite thing I've ever done. I find it difficult to find words to describe the whole thing because it's such a miracle."

Not since Madonna has a pop star's pregnancy been so highly anticipated and well documented. As far back as No Doubt's 2000 album Return of Saturn Stefani was writing lyrics about her desire to be a mother. Presumably it took husband Rossdale, who came to fame fronting Bush in the '90s, a few years to take the hint.

Now 37, Stefani's debut solo single, What You Waiting For, started with a ticking clock -- a not-so-subtle metaphor for her own biological equivalent.

"I have to say people are more interested in me having a baby than any record or anything I've ever done in my whole entire life," Stefani admits.

"It's so weird. Who would have known? I could have done this a long time ago!"

Before she was pregnant, motherhood was a popular topic for the refreshingly honest Stefani in interviews. She once said she oped being a mother would rid her of her vanity.

So? "It hasn't saved me from my vanity, at all, I'm super vain still, more than ever. It's torture being a girl!

"I was always worried about how I'd fit a baby into my life, worried if I'd be too vain or too self-centred to care enough about him.

" I'd think `What if I'm still too into myself?' but the love just totally beats down any of those ideas. It's crazy love you get."

Stefani is a hands-on mother. Kingston goes everywhere with her; he'll accompany her on her looming world tour, including Australia, where she plans to introduce him to "kangaroos and koalas".

"Even if I had a real job, I'd just quit," Stefani laughs.

"I'd want to be with him. I didn't wait all this time to miss that. I'm not going to give him away (to a nanny), he's been with me every day and every night since he was born."

Even before he was born Kingston was on stage with his mother.

Stefani not only toured her solo debut Love Angel Music Baby accidentally -- a UK festival appearance snowballed into an American tour -- but she discovered she was pregnant while on the road in late 2005.

It was, she insists, torture.

"I couldn't enjoy being pregnant, couldn't enjoy the tour, I was away from Gavin, everything was wrong with it. I was so sick and tired and felt so gross being pregnant. Even though it was a miracle to be pregnant, you still feel gross and ugly and fat and bloated.

"So I was getting up on stage every night and nobody knew I was pregnant.

"But being pregnant made the first 4 1/2 months go quickly. It was an amazing way to spend it in some ways, but if I could have chosen I would have been at home in bed eating and watching TV, cuddling up to my husband. It's a romantic time. Instead I was squeezing into an Alice in Wonderland costume!"

Despite all that, Stefani is open about wanting a brother or sister for Kingston as soon as possible; regardless of her professional schedule.

"We always wanted to have more than one. I'm touring for the next six months, obviously I'd be really happy if I got pregnant but it would be terrible to tour and be pregnant again."

Kingston may have been in utero on the Love Angel Music Baby tour, but he actually made his musical debut on Stefani's second solo album The Sweet Escape.

He makes gurgling noises on Yummy.

"He was in the studio with me the whole time, I've got all these demos you can hear him on."

The album arrived at a time Stefani was meant to be working on a new No Doubt album, but she was suffering from inspiration withdrawal.

"I just couldn't picture the next No Doubt album, musically or creatively, I couldn't see what we'd do as a band."

Stefani had some leftover tracks from the LAMB sessions and a random visit with her Hollaback Girl co-author Pharrell Williams produced three songs. Soon Stefani had half an album up her sleeve.

"Not to mention the fact I was on a wave and didn't want to crash down," Stefani says of her solo success.

"This kind of (pop) music, as opposed to No Doubt, feels very immediate. You write it and almost have to put it out right away, `cos it's all about the now and defining that time of being in the club, it's all very fleeting."

Finishing The Sweet Escape, Stefani says, suddenly gave her the inspiration for returning to No Doubt.

"I definitely feel more calm after having Kingston, more completed. And immediately as I finished The Sweet Escape suddenly the light bulb of ideas of No Doubt world came.

"I'm super-inspired about it. I was panicking for a while, I felt obligated to go and do No Doubt in some way, but it all just happened. It's almost like it's written and you're just being pointed in the right direction. That's the way I look at it."

Since her time out from No Doubt, Stefani's fame has accelerated to the point where she's now an A-list global celebrity. It seemed like her entire pregnancy was captured by paparazzi. There's a reason why.

"The paparazzi were outside my house for every single day of my pregnancy," Stefani says. "These photographers gave Gavin a book of all the photos they'd been taking of the pregnancy as a Father's Day present! It had their picture and card at the end."

The money shot came when the photographers snapped Stefani and Rossdale taking their then eight-week-old baby out for a play day with Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their similarly newborn baby Shiloh.

"Gavin and Brad have been friends over the years, they're not like best friends, but we did go and see them after we had our babies because we had our babies basically on the same day, except they were in Africa and we were in LA," Stefani says.

"It's always fun to be with someone when you're both pregnant, to talk to people experiencing the same thing. But we felt bad, the paps came with us when we all hung out, but they're cool people and really relaxed. And their baby is gorgeous."

Stefani is now workshopping her Sweet Escape world tour, again looking forward to who is going to come and see her this time around.

"This is a very long, drawn-out 15 minutes of fame I've experienced, but every record I've done has brought me different audiences," she says.

The star is also keen to capitalise on her string of solo hits in Australia.

"I was meant to go last time," Stefani assures, "I was this close to coming to Australia, but then he got in my stomach."