Okay, I have to start with a confession. I am an inveterate reader of gossip magazines, and my sister and I love to chat on the phone about “Jessica and Nick” as if they were our eccentric neighbors.
I will go on further to admit that I actually have a subscription to PEOPLE, however, I will mention they were nice enough to review my novel, so I must say they have my full support as they once supported me.
So even if you just glance at the covers while in line at the supermarket, you probably see it’s all full of who’s pregnant, who’s adopting from China, who’s adopting and pregnant (no need to name names, Brangelina), and the occasional alien baby thrown in for good measure.
There’s occasionally little bits about celebrities trying; case in point, Demi and Ashton, and I remember seeing a picture in some magazine (was it PEOPLE?) trying to confirm a pregnancy rumour by showing a picture of the two of them, Demi looking quite ripe, shopping at a baby furniture store.
Having been there, I would say she definitely looked pregnant – that swollen, curvy, hormonal look was evident (to me) in the picture because she is normally quite slender. I guess maybe around 12 weeks, about the time you’d start telling people.
Later, Demi suddenly looked back to her thin, buff self and there was Ashton dissing PEOPLE, saying it only belonged in the toilet. Now, to avenge one of my favorite magazines and to examine the possibility that perhaps she was pregnant, and, like many 42-years-olds trying to conceive, isn’t any more.
I don’t know where the old “don’t tell anyone until you’re in your second trimester!” came from. A miscarriage is an emotional event, and enduring it quietly, sweeping it away as a “failure,” seems to do everyone an injustice, in my opinion. If, and I’m saying if, Demi Moore was actually as pregnant as she looked, and then she had a miscarriage, which, at her age, would probably be just as likely than a viable pregnancy, actually, why the need to cover it up? Why, always, the need to pretend that everything is just groovy? I don’t know when miscarriage was seen as a failure, something to be ashamed of. That’s probably why I even object to the term “miscarriage”: it makes it sound like my womb dropped the baby accidentally. That, and my other favorite, “incompetent cervix,” is another way language impacts on mainly women when it comes to reproductive issues. (that’s also why we have “erectile dysfunction” and not “erectile incompetence,” as we should). In any event, that’s why I asked to have the site called Fertility. Families grow in lots of different ways.
Okay, let me continue my rant:
The other reason why I watch the celebrity fertility circus with such a squinty eye is that while the celebrities often love to parade their offspring around, you rarely see a celebrity with a less-than-perfect child. Oddly enough, a friend who took her severely disabled child to California to get some help at a specialized center was flabbergasted to see a big star there with her child, especially after this star had written one of those celebrity motherhood memoirs about how great being a celebrity mom was. Um….she obviously left a huge thing out.
Stay tuned. I have a comment on Meg Ryan’s adopting from China coming up soon!
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