BEING AN OBSTETRICIAN? “While I was in Brazil on a volunteer mission, I was asked to help out around the hospital. This hospital was absolutely barren. They didn’t even have enough rubber gloves, and they disposed of their ‘sharps’ in a two-liter soda bottle. Not everyone had masks in the operating rooms. There just wasn’t enough to go around. It was very eye-opening. I assisted on minor surgeries, acted as a triage nurse. Two of the days I was working there, women showed up and said, ‘I’m ready to pop! Let’s do this!’ So I helped some babies be born. It was unbelievable.”

Bell is grateful for SO much more: Sondheim, Smurfs, fanboys, and the transformative power of tragedy. Read the rest of Kristen Bell’s gratitude list in ON GRATITUDE (in bookstores 9.21.10, World Gratitude Day)…more here