Celebrity Baby Watch!

I don't know what it is about "celebrity baby bumps" lately that I find so incredibly annoying. Perhaps it follows on the heels of my earlier post awhile back about unnecessary inductions and our obsession with babies arriving "right on schedule," whatever that means. (You mean, our schedule, surely.)

No, I do NOT have a headache, and
no, I am not due "any day now." 

I've written a post about this before - how absolutely retarded the tabloids (and very frequently, the "real" media) sound when they're talking about pregnancy and childbirth issues. Natalie Portman, seen out and about (oh my God, someone call an ambulance! Get a stretcher, she's gonna blow!) in the 'last days of freedom,' as the Daily Mail put it, before her baby is due to arrive. Yeah, she looks like she's in an absolute panic that that kid hasn't popped out right now, there on the sidewalk as we speak, I'm sure. What the photo doesn't show are those invisible shackles growing around her ankles, because surely, facing the impending birth of your first child is likened to a prison sentence.

As far as I've heard, Natalie is due in June. When the photo (at left) was taken, it was still May - and that due date was probably weeks away. Although it's perhaps a trivial pet peeve of mine, it does underscore how completely dysfunctional our society is when it comes to understanding the process of pregnancy and birth.

(Reader comments were unavailable at this time. Probably because they were all totally stupid.)

"It looks like she could go into labor any second."
Yeah, or maybe two (or three or four) weeks from now. 

Another celebrity to meet the unfortunate gaze of the camera lens lately was Pink. Looking equally large as Natalie, she was also labeled as "due any day." (Note: when I originally wrote this post, like more than three weeks ago, it was "any day now," and apparently Pink has only just now checked herself in to deliver her child. Any month now, you mean?) "Incredibly Pregnant Pink Keeps on Shopping" is the headline of this dazzling photo, with the singer holding a bag from a Michaels craft store (hey, she has good taste!). (Doesn't it look like she's shopping with Britney Spears?)

Poor "incredibly pregnant Pink," whom the press are amazed can still walk around under her own volition even at this late stage in her "condition." You mean, women this pregnant actually go out? And socialize with people and eat real food and - gasp! - go shopping? I am making a mental note of when they start saying these celebrities are 'ready to pop' versus when they really deliver.

With my first, I had the audacity to eat at Red Lobster only hours before going into labor and having a cesarean (that made my anesthesiologist really happy, I'm sure). And with my second - I had just gone out the night before for Wendy's (the horror!) and sat eating it at a nasty old picnic table while reading Ina May's Guide to Childbirth just twelve hours before delivering my daughter.

And now, nearly a month later, Pink is just now delivering her child via cesarean because of breech presentation. On the eve of the impending surgery, one article read:

It is not usual for a breech baby to turn within the last three weeks of pregnancy, so it is assumed that Pink will be undergoing the surgical procedure to have their little one removed.

Removed? Excuse me?! Apparently Pink isn't pregnant, but rather is suffering from a seven-pound ingrown toenail. What a terrible way to describe the birth of your baby. And who says "it is not usual" for babies to turn within the last three weeks, anyway? I bet the author (a guy) leaned over his cubicle wall and consulted his office colleague, who probably gets all her information on pregnancy from bad shows on cable TV.

The media and tabloids are even obsessed with women who aren't pregnant but just look it. What a compliment. I can't remember who it was - Eva Longoria, maybe? who admitted she must have needed to lose some weight when everyone suggested she was pregnant (which she wasn't). How nice.

Their current obsession is Katie Holmes, who was spotted out shoe shopping and is apparently guilty of just "looking pregnant." She insisted that she isn't, and I suspect it's just her seriously ugly jeans that emphasize whatever belly she has while making her look square-shaped to boot. Either way, I'd take her stomach in a heartbeat.