Meghan Trainor Didn’t Have a Home Birth Like Her ‘HIMYF’ Role, but the Experience Was ‘Terrifying’

Grammy-winning singer Meghan Trainor appears in the How I Met Your Father Season 2 episode “Midwife Crisis.” Trainor plays a pregnant woman who has a home birth in the Hulu series, an experience that ends up being semi-traumatic. While Trainor didn’t give birth to her first-born at home, she did call the experience “terrifying.” Here’s why. 

Meghan Trainor guest stars as Ramona in ‘How I Met Your Father’ Season 2

“I’m a dirty liar,” Sophie (Kim Cattrall) tells her son in the opening of How I Met Your Father Season 2 Episode 2. “Back in the day, compulsive lying was kind of my jam.” 

One of Sophie’s (Hilary Duff) many lies was told to her neighbor Ramona, played by Trainor in the episode. As a pregnant woman in early labor, Ramona comes knocking at Sophie’s door to let her know since she hired her to take photos of Ramona’s home birth. What Ramona didn’t know was Sophie lied about her experience. She had never shot a home birth before. 

“I’ve shot so many home births, I could practically perform one,” Sophie tells Ramona in a flashback. This comes in handy for Ramona, whose midwife ends up running late. Committed to her lie, Sophie helps coach Ramona through her home birth in the HIMYF episode, shrimp and all.

Meghan Trainor says her son’s birth was a ‘horror story’ 

Trainor and her husband, Daryl Sabara, welcomed their son Riley in February 2021. The “Made You Look” singer may not have given birth at home in real life, but her experience was just as memorable as the fictional Ramona’s in “Midwife Crisis.” 

“It was one of those horror stories where he didn’t cry,” Trainor told Today Parents regarding her son’s first moments. “He didn’t make noise when he came out. I was like, ‘Why isn’t he crying?’ Then they told me he was having breathing issues. It was terrifying.”

Riley was born breech via a C-section. He was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and placed on a feeding tube, but not before Trainor briefly got a glimpse of her newborn. 

“I got to see him for one second before they took him away. That was probably the worst part,” Trainor added. “It was definitely a rough start. But we’re so lucky we got to bring him home after five days.” Today, Riley is thriving and expecting a new sibling soon. 

Baby number two is on the way  

While promoting her book Dear Future Mama on the Today show on Jan. 30, Trainor shared the ultrasounds of her and Sabara’s second child. “[The book] comes with a baby!” Trainor joked. “We’re pregnant!” 

The couple knows the sex of the baby, but Trainor says they’re “saving it for TikTok.” Trainor and Sabara are expecting baby number two’s arrival sometime in the summer of 2023. 

Dear Future Mama comes out Apr. 25. Watch new episodes of How I Met Your Father on Hulu every Tuesday.