Mandy Moore Shares Intimate Snapshot Taken After Newborn Son Gus' Birth: 'Still Processing'

Mandy Moore is expressing gratitude as a new mom.

The This Is Us actress, 36, and her husband Taylor Goldsmith welcomed their first child together, son August Harrison, last month, and on Friday, nearly two weeks after the birth, Moore is sharing an update while saying she's proud of her body.

"Still processing how Gus's birth unfolded with utter gratitude for my body, my support team and the journey our sweet boy took to meet us," she wrote alongside an intimate black-and-white photo of herself holding her newborn for the first time. The snapshot was captured by her "magnificent" doula, Carson Meyer.

Moore said on an episode of Informed Pregnancy Podcast that she originally planned to have a natural home birth but was forced to alter those plans after experiencing a health complication.

She said they found "fantastic" doulas and midwives to help them and "felt so immediately sold on this team that we had assembled, and from very early on in pregnancy, had them both on this journey with us."

But due to a health concern relating to a drop in her platelets, which she revealed on Instagram earlier this month, she had to forgo a home birth.

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"My platelets have been dropping throughout pregnancy and it's something I never thought about until I got, I'd say early to midway through my third trimester, they sort of started dropping pretty precipitously and fell below the threshold that would make it possible for me to do a home birth," explained Moore.

Moore said that realizing she couldn't have a home birth temporarily made her envious of other moms who could.

"Unfortunately my plans have had to change. I initially was like, 'I got it, absolutely. I am malleable, I'm going to do whatever it takes for this baby,' and that is absolutely how I still feel. But the grieving process about my plan not unfolding the way that I had hoped actually, I felt this sort of delayed reaction," she said. "It was a couple of weeks afterward that it really sort of sunk in."

"Just caring about other people that were planning to do home births and feeling this weird tinge of jealousy," continued Moore. "I know that sounds ridiculous, but I'm like, 'Oh man, I'm happy for them, but I'm also kind of sad that I don't get to have that experience that I was hoping for.' "

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Moore said their birth plan was to "labor at home, and then at a certain point in early active labor to go to the hospital and actually have the wonderful opportunity to deliver with a midwife at a hospital, which I know is not the normal experience."

"I feel like, at the end of the day, I'm kind of getting the best of both worlds," she said of the hybrid birthing plan. "Very grateful to still have the midwife component to my delivery."

"I'm incredibly grateful and, yes, things didn't unfold the way that I wanted, but I say, that is the ultimate lesson of life and parenthood and the next chapter that we're about to venture into," added Moore. "I'm really leaning into that and leaning into the idea of surrender and things are going to unfold exactly the way that they're supposed to. And I trust that and I trust my body and I trust my team and I'm more or less just excited."

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