Gwen Cuts Loose

During the three days I spend with her, her desire to have children is a continual theme, whether she's talking about how she never planned on being a pop star ("Before that, all I ever did was, like, look at Tony and pray that God would let me have a baby with him") or the joy of marrying Rossdale ("It's such a beautiful, magical feeling, I can't explain it. It's like having a baby. I can imagine what it might be like. But that love I've never experienced") or her plans for the future ("I don't know what I'm going to do, but I've always wanted to do the family thing").

And like any successful woman on the mommy track, she worries about the conflicts of career and family, although most women don't have to stress about the demands of dressing as fairy-tale characters in music videos. "At a certain point I'm going to want to have a family," Stefani says, "and I'm not going to have time to be running around the world doing this shit and being greedy the way I have been. I can always write songs. But can I always wear an Alice in Wonderland costume? I probably shouldn't. I can at home. I was thinking that when I have children, that I should always dress as a character for them, so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella. It would be totally messed up!"

"I hope she chooses to do both things," says Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Stefani's label, Interscope, of the star's career and family ambitions. "She can handle both. I think she would really miss not fulfilling her potential as an artist, and she'd regret that. But her potential as a mom is equally as powerful."

"This is the first time in a long time that I actually don't know what's gonna happen next," Stefani finally says. "You think about it as a famous person. You think about how you're gonna end it. How you're gonna get away and have a normal life. I imagine my children are going to save me from my vanity and be my passion and fill whatever fears I have of the amazing time I'm having right now being gone. I don't want to drop off and not be on the radio or not be able to talk about myself for hours. I don't want it to go away. But at the same time, I never expected to be here in the first place."