Dominika Gwit about the disease: Either I was starving myself or I was gaining weight, as they say, “out of thin air”

I knew Dominika Gwit-Dunaszewska, a theater and film actress and mother of a one-year-old son, mainly from her roles and interviews. There was something about them that made me always want to meet her in person and get to know her, but I haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet. So I followed her posts and reports on social media with a smile, especially since she became a mother. Her directness and emotions often touched me and were very close to what I was experiencing. Although I knew that the joy of motherhood was one thing, her path to being a mother was not easy at all. I couldn’t wait for our meeting and conversation, which we arranged in Warsaw’s Żoliborz district, at the atmospheric Cafe Bar Havana, on a white January afternoon.

KASIA: I’m very glad that we can get to know each other. I’ve been following you on IG for a long time and I love the way you talk about motherhood, your natural joy. When I watched a video yesterday of you making borscht – and I was also cooking tomato soup for my little one, a little angry that I could be doing something important, reading a book, and not standing at the pot – my perspective immediately changed. You can just see how much happiness fills you. However, before this happened, before you found yourself in this moment where we meet, you went through a lot to make this dream come true. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like?

DOMINIKA: You know, for me it was like that I was never a woman who dreamed of a big house, a family, three children, a dog and a prince on a white horse. I have always committed myself to life with the attitude: whatever will be, will be. I counted on myself. I was like that, I was striving to achieve my goal, to fulfill my dreams. However, I really dreamed of becoming an actress and I did everything to make it happen. Of course, I wanted to experience great love, but it was always somewhere nearby, not in the foreground, and it never worked, it even seemed pointless.

Well, it’s not easy to find true love. We all know something about it…

That’s true. And I was completely focused on my dreams and so focused on my career, on doing what I wanted and what I dreamed of, that it started to work out. It was then that I met my Wojtek. Great love blossomed in 2016. At the same time, towards the end of that year I started to feel that there was something wrong with me, with my body, because it was changing all the time – I was either starving myself or gaining weight, as they say, “out of thin air”. Of course, gaining or losing weight didn’t come out of nowhere, but it was out of proportion to how I was living my life. I decided to check what was wrong with me. In 2018, I went to a brilliant doctor, a gynecologist-endocrinologist. I found her completely by accident – I actually didn’t know that I was going to such a great specialist; I simply had problems with my cycle and I found her on the Internet because I was fed up with all the other doctors in the packages I had previously purchased. That’s why I looked for a doctor privately. I admit that I didn’t read much about her – I just made an appointment for a consultation. As soon as I entered the appointment, the doctor said:

“It’s good that you’re here, because I know what you’re suffering from.” And so, thirty years later – because I was thirty at the time – I found out that I had metabolic syndrome. This year marks six years since I was diagnosed with this syndrome, which includes, among others, primary infertility. The doctor made me realize that if we don’t start doing something about it right away, I may not have children. Then I started to wonder if I wanted to have them at all, because deep inside my heart I always felt that if I had a child, I wouldn’t be able to cope with it, and this elaborate pyramid I had built so far would collapse. I thought I would become depressed and not be able to function at all. And then I heard that I wouldn’t have children…

How did you react to this diagnosis?

It was a big shock for me. I thought I didn’t want to build my own family, but when I found out I might not have one, that’s when I realized how much I needed it. I was determined. I started treatment. For the next five years, I underwent intensive treatment, including infertility treatment; there were pills, injections, hospital stays for tests, then changes in treatment because it didn’t work… I went through a lot. However, all the time during these therapies I knew that I was doing all this because I wanted to have a child, even though I was very afraid of it.

What exactly were you afraid of? Where does this fear come from?

That I simply can’t cope, that I won’t get over it. I don’t know why I thought that…

I must admit that it was similar with me… For example, I once dreamed that I had a child, but I couldn’t feed it.

I didn’t know anything about children, I was completely green. Only later, when my son was born, did I remember that my brother was born when I was seven, so I knew certain things. Despite this, I still felt that I couldn’t cope, that children were not for me, that small children, these diapers, all this – were not mine at all. What’s more, I think that having a child is sometimes demonized by those around us. I received only negative messages: that when you become a mother, your fulfilled life will end, only diapers, betas and sleepless nights will remain, that you will bury yourself in it, etc.

What else were you afraid of, what were the other negative opinions you heard?

That you won’t go back to work? This sounds strangely familiar to me…

Yes, I heard that too: that it’s difficult to go back to work after giving birth, that I won’t be able to cope because I don’t have my family with me, because I come from Pomerania and my husband from Zagłębie, that since we are alone in Warsaw and without support, we can’t do it we’ll sort it out. I was simply afraid that motherhood would bury me in a world I didn’t want to live in. I wanted to have a family, a child and everything that comes with it, but on the other hand I also wanted to keep myself. That’s why I was afraid that this family world would absorb me, that I would die somewhere under diapers and that I wouldn’t get out from under them. So I bet on myself, I was determined and I decided that I would not give up. There are women who immerse themselves in motherhood with great pleasure, and I really respect that, but I just didn’t want to do that. That’s why I returned to work quite quickly after giving birth. My son was a month old when I went to his first reading rehearsal. When he was five months old, I started regular rehearsals for plays. And when I remember those holidays today, those rehearsals lasting throughout August and September for two performances at once, with my baby, I really don’t know how I survived it. I’m proud of myself.

Additionally, as you mentioned, both you and your husband have family far away, so I can imagine how difficult it must have been for you.

That’s true. I had to hire a nanny because there was no other option – as I said, we simply don’t have anyone here, so we have to have a nanny. In fact, we have two, one permanent and one “increasing”. But I had to hire one of them full-time during rehearsals. She was with me every day during the entire two months of these most intense rehearsals in the theater. I laughed about having three days in one day. I got up with my little one at five because that’s when he woke up. I was with him until ten o’clock, then the nanny came, and I had rehearsals from eleven to four, and then from five o’clock I was all for my son again. I slept very little because it was a period when my son woke up quite often at night, and to this day I don’t know how I got through all these trials back then. But I did it. I really wanted to keep a balance in all this, so I stood on my head, on my eyelashes, and braced myself so as not to bury myself at home with all this motherhood.

Have you ever felt remorse? Have you accused yourself of returning to work too soon?

I can’t say I didn’t feel guilty, I thought maybe I went back to work too soon or maybe I shouldn’t do all this because my son is so tiny. Nevertheless, in March, when the baby was two months old, I went to perform my musical stand-up in Pruszków on the occasion of Women’s Day – just one evening. I was away for four hours, but when I stood on that stage, I already knew that I had to fight for it – because I want to make a living from it, because the stage is my greatest passion in life and only then will I be the best mother I can be, when I don’t give up on myself. And so I did. This first autumn was very demanding for us, because I returned to work at full speed from September, traveling around Poland: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But we managed. It was hard, very hard, because my husband also had a lot of work, and in fact there were such crises that there was a lot of crying because we were simply tired. But what matters is that we survived and the worst is now behind us. As I said, I often wonder if I did the right thing, I feel guilty that maybe I shouldn’t work so much; I was thinking about whether people were looking at me wrongly and that I had decided this way and not otherwise…

Have you received any comments regarding your decisions?

NO. I was making myself feel so guilty and I was asking myself if I was doing the right thing, but at the same time I knew that I was – because this is what I dreamed of and this is what I wanted my life to look like: to fulfill myself as a mother, as a woman and as an actress. I am a woman and I am an actress – I really cannot live without the stage, it is my element. And maybe it’s selfish, maybe egotistical – sometimes I wondered about it, but I just knew that if I just kept this balance, I would be a fulfilled woman.

May 28 at 18 at 3 Mysia Street there will be a meeting with Kasia Olubińska, Dominika Gwit-Dunaszewska and Anna Czartoryska.

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