The world has finally seen photos of Suri Cruise - on Tuesday's CBS Evening News and in the issue of Vanity Fair that hit newsstands Wednesday - and Katie Holmes saysthe speculation that has surrounded her child has been "heartbreaking."
Holmes, 27, tells Vanity Fair that the gossip about her and fianc¨| Tom Cruise's daughter - born April 17 but unseen until now - "eats away at me because it's just not okay. ... Some of the crap that's out there - the stuff that's said about my parents and my siblings (implying that they didn't approve of her relationship with Cruise, 44) - it's really frustrating the amount of s¨C that's out there. And the stuff they say about Suri? You shouldn't say that about us, and you can't say that about my child."
Still, she says, she keeps up on the rumors because "this is my future. This is my family, and I care so much about them. To see how someone as caring and good as Tom is - to see how things can just get so twisted and turned around. I mean, where does it come from?"
Holmes also says she "was overjoyed in being pregnant, and then had to withstand ridicule about my pregnancy when it was the most normal, non-controversial thing imaginable."
The photos of Cruise, Holmes and Suri were taken by Annie Leibovitz on July 27 at Cruise's Telluride, Colo., spread. According to the magazine, Cruise's kids Isabella and Connor (with ex-wife Nicole Kidman) and Holmes's mother, father and other family members were there too.
So why did the new parents keep Suri out of sight for so long? "We were just living our lives, being a family," Cruise says. "Actually, we were taking our own photos and always planned to release those at the right time."
But "then all the craziness began," says Holmes. "This 'Where is Suri?' controversy. Tom and I looked at each other and said, 'What's going on?' We weren't trying to hide anything."
And the baby? "She has Kate's lips and eyes. I think she looks like Kate," says Tom, while Holmes says, "I think she has Tom's eyes. I think she looks like Tom."
The couple also explained Cruise's purchase of an at-home sonogram machine while Holmes was pregnant. The couple was mobbed by paparazzi when they went out, says Holmes, so the doctor had to come to their home. "The sonogram was for his use!"
But their new daughter made it all worthwhile. "The moment the doctor handed me Suri," Holmes says, "I was just ready. The feeling is indescribable. All I can say is the moment I looked in her eyes I felt like ... Mom.
"She's a glorious girl. She's the miracle of our life."