Text messages tell you when to get it on

For the busy professional trying to get pregnant, a new service from the folks at BabyCenter is arguably the most disturbing reminder of not only how technologised pre-conception, pregnancy and birth have become but also provides me with great pleasure in not having succumbed to the powers of a Blackberry.

Called Booty Caller, using information about your ovulation cycle, the service texts you when the time is right to make babies (3 texts per menstrual cycle). Sample messages include:

• "Your fertile window starts in 1 week. Find out if your chances of getting pregnant are better in the morning."

• "Your fertile window opens today and lasts 5 more days. Stress can get in the way of conception so relax and get a massage, meditate, or take a yoga class."

• "Today is your last fertile day! If you get pregnant during this cycle, your due date will be on or around 6.25.2009.”

Hmm, while the service ostensibly is providing 'helpful advice', it's hard not to think that such a service also serves as a pretty horrible reminder that if you don't get pregnant by the last text message, you have 'failed' at your mission.

Forget about 'Today is your last fertile day', why not just say 'You're 41. Are you kidding yourself?'

Besides, couples trying to get pregnant often complain that sex becomes like a chore when baby-making becomes the single-minded obsession of a woman who can hear her 'biological clock' ticking in the background. It's bad enough that most surveys say that sex dries up in many marriages without the added burden of trying to get pregnant. Why add a text message to an already stressful situation?

Sources:
http://www.babycenter.com/ovulation-mobile-alerts
http://gizmodo.com/5105359/the-booty-caller-texts-you-when-to-make-babies
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008579446_textappeal01.html

Follow celebrity parenting styles in new book

As if People magazine hadn't elevated celebrity motherhood to a new stratosphere of cultural importance, a new book slated for release in March 2009 claims to provide its readers with the inside secrets of Hollywood pregnancy. Entitled The Black Book of Hollywood Pregnancy Secrets, the authors interviewed a number of celeb mums including Angelina Jolie, Kate Hudson,Tina Fey and Katie Holmes about 'real' celebrity motherhood (whatever that is). While the thought of having an even closer look inside the uteruses of America's most famous mothers (and considering my book about celeb pregnancy will be much better....*hiss*!), I did find one great tidbit from Helena Bonham Carter, 42, an actress known more for her sartorial mishaps than her stellar parenting skills. Upon being chastised by a stranger for drinking coffee she said to the man:

"You try nine months of gestation and self-abnegation before you start censoring my diet. Your mother was probably on vodka, and do you have three heads?"

Sources: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7013492495
http://tinyurl.com/737bgk