Eva Mendes, who has remained relatively quiet about her daughter Esmerelda with Ryan Gosling, opened up about her first child on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Eva Mendes On Daughter Esmerelda

Back in February, Mendes talked to Ellen DeGeneres on the show when rumors about her pregnancy were heating up. When the host asked her about the speculation, which started because Mendez had refused to go through the X-ray scanners at an airport, Mendez flat out denied being pregnant. With faux outrage, DeGeneres called Mendes a liar on her show this week.

“Not really because I was so early on!” Mendes defended herself. “All moms will understand, you’re not supposed to tell anybody during your first… well certainly not the world… in your first trimester. My mother didn’t even know yet. So that would have been an awkward phone call. ‘Hey mom did you catch Ellen today?’ Um, oops!”

“I think just early on, we decided it’s going to be so hard for her to have privacy,” Mendes added. “We thought this is the first opportunity we can give her to protect her and so that I had a nice calm pregnancy, which I did.”

When Mendes denied the pregnancy on Ellen, she’d explained the rumors away, saying, “It’s so ridiculous. It all started because I didn’t want to go through the scanners at the airport. You know those X-ray scanners, which are really creepy? They basically see you naked, right? And not only that, but there’s a radiation aspect to it, so I always opt out.”

DeGeneres appeared to let Mendes off the hook, but circled back to the speculation, saying, “No, you’re not pregnant. I know. I just wanted to give you the chance to announce if it’s a boy or girl.”

Mendes responded, “No! No!” in between laughs.

Now, two months into motherhood, Mendes is willing to talk about the struggle.  “You know, we’re getting the hang of it, the sleeping thing, but yeah I’m exhausted and it’s the best,” she told the host. “Really, I’m so incredibly tired,” she added. “I thought I was tired before at times, but no. Nothing like this, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

As for how she’s already managed to shed a good portion of her pregnancy weight, Mendes says it’s not the gym, but rather breastfeeding. “I’ve always heard it. It really does help to shrink your uterus back to normal size. It does!,” she claimed. “I know it’s a really weird thing to say, but it does. It’s the best. So it’s breastfeeding is really helping and then obviously you want to be healthy for the baby because she’s eating kind of what I’m eating, so you want to make good choices.”