
GAF Actress Embraces Motherhood Amid Busy Career
By Movieguide® Contributor
Alexa PenaVega honors the importance of her role as a mother, despite her busy career as an actress.
“I just have found that so often, we no longer become the people raising our kids,” she explained in an interview E! News. “I’m watching it in this industry again and again, and I just don’t want that for our family, I don’t want that for our children. A career is wonderful, but it does not replace having a family, and I know that I would have regrets in the future if I just missed out on all of these things.”
PenaVega shares four children with her husband Carlos: Ocean, 6, Kingston, 4, Rio, 2, and Indy, who was stillborn in April. She opened up about experiencing the loss of her unborn daughter and how she grieved.
“Earlier this year we ended up having a still birth. It’s not something that you would ever expect or wish upon your worst enemy because we had a heartbeat two minutes before we gave birth, so it was really something unexpected,” PenaVega explained.
“She was so beautiful. She was a chunky little girl, looked just like Carlos’ dark hair, cocoa bean skin. But here’s what I will say: there was a lot of pain, but it was pain with purpose, and for people who haven’t had to walk through something heavy like this, it’s really hard to understand. Like how can you find joy after that? How can you experience this crazy peace? It was supernatural peace right away, like it was painful like we would just cry, and we hurt, and we grieved. But we also celebrated, we also rejoiced. I hugged my kids that I have here on earth a little tighter,” she said.
“We have obviously felt a lot of pain but also an insane amount of peace. God has really met us in this place between pain and peace, and it doesn’t make any sense, other than that it is his supernatural peace that is just covering us,” she continued. “This season, I have learned so much about pain with purpose.”
READ MORE: ALEXA PENAVEGA: ‘INCREDIBLE TO SEE HOW GOD MOVED’ FOLLOWING STILLBIRTH
“From the bottom of our hearts — thank you for the love and support you guys have shown us,” they wrote. “This production company has been prayed for and over for so many years. To see if come to reality is not only an answered prayer, but an opportunity to reach the masses, shedding love and light. God has and will always remain at the core of what we do, and we pray that the movies we create reflect that.”
“We’ve done a lot of movies in this, you know, genre. You know, we’ve done a lot of Hallmark movies, a few Great American Family, Pure Flix, you know, we love family-friendly content. [But], there’s a lot of family-friendly content that I watch that I’m just like, ‘I wish we could give it some oomph.’ Like, how do we elevate this?” Carlos told Movieguide®. “So we set out with a bunch of goals for this movie, and I believe we accomplished every single one.”