Trista Sutter bounces back...only to bulge out?

Oh Trista Sutter (T.Sutt, in the spirit of J.Lo)....she's back in the 'news' (and I use that term lightly) in an Us magazine 'Exclusive' splashing her bounced-back-from-baby body on this week's cover. It was only in October that I wrote about Trista's mission to be slim by the new year. Here's a little reminder: http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2007/10/trista-sutter-wants-to-be-skinny-sigh.html

Wanting to be 'two sizes smaller' and back into her size 26 Hudson jeans, it looks as though T.Sutt has dropped 30 lbs of her baby baggage and is proud to tell everyone that she can't go to sleep at night until she's done about 5,000 sit ups. Blah Blah Blah.

This is the kicker. Us, in their infinite and highly unethical wisdom (just consider that yesterday breaking news' headline' was that Britney Spears was drinking orange soda), has decided to publish T.Sutt's 'exact' diet and exercise program for all of those mothers who can't wait to beat their bodies into submission because they are afraid their husbands will be forever repusled by a little belly fat.

I find it even more amazing that given the whole 'exclusive' is about how happy T.Sutt is about getting back to her 'sexy' self, the story ends with the mention that she is already trying for a second baby! Honestly! What is the point? I'm sure she's is happy being a mother but what why on earth would she go to such extreme lengths to lose weight if she is just planning on being pregnant immediately following her miraculous transformation?! T.Sutt also goes on about how happy Ryan is with her 'new' body...so if she was so worried before about her relationship won't getting pregnant again bring her back to the same body anxious place?

I don't get it.

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/exclusive_baby_trista_debuts_her_shocking_bikini_body

Caesareans: preventing the 'trauma' of natural birth

If this isn't the most irresponsible tidbit about caesars I've read in awhile...

"Tim Wilson, a colorectal surgeon at Sydney Hospital and Mona Vale Hospital, said vaginal birth caused serious problems for women that were often only unmasked later in life. "I see sphincter disruption after vaginal delivery as well as tears in the immediate post-partum period, but most commonly we see the effects of that damage … when women are in their 50s and 60s.

Many women who had a caesarean section were "saving themselves a lot of discomfort and pain later in life", he said. "The birth process is anything but optimal. It is tearing, bruising, and very traumatic - a lot of women do not come forward about it [incontinence] because they feel shamed."

Right. And what were the risks of caesarean again? Oh that's right. I think DEATH is on the top of the list. I think I'll take a little incontinence (which can be remedied with exercise!) over a casket.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/caesareans-unlikely-to-spare-mothers-grief-of-incontinence/2008/01/15/1200159449402.html

A little bump in the road.

I never thought I would say this.

I feel saturated. Fully and utterly saturated. As of this week, it feels like pregnancy and birth are the only things left for the media to talk about. Whereas I used to get a little rush reading about the latest pregnant celeb, seeing the snaps of her belly in a tight maternity top or delighting in stories about weight gain, for some reason this week, pregnancy in the news is no longer exciting. From someone who lives and breathes pregnancy (without actually being pregnant), this is a very bizarre turn of events.

I've been trying to work out why celeb pregnancy hasn't been doing it for me lately. Is it just the latest crop of preggos that I find to be utterly boring? Is it possible that I have read too many tabloids for one lifetime? Then it occurred to me. Pregnancy is now a career booster for celebrities and the birth of a child is treated like an 'event' rather than a private family affair. More than 400 articles are devoted to the 'birth' of Christina Aguilera's son whom she had by elective caesarean (which is not mentioned anywhere). For someone who claimed she did not want to have the media involved in her pregnancy by sheepishly failing to 'announce' that she was knocked up, that she and her husband sent decided to send out a press release just undermines the 'privacy' she was supposedly trying to achieve. Why would she do that? Because pregnancy and motherhood are clearly boons to the careers of celebrity women and it would be a mistake not to cash in on the tabloid baby showers.

Now that all of these celebs are pregnant (I hesitate to even give a complete list it has grown so spectacularly in the last few months), pregnancy is an PR exercise. No one is willing to say how they really feel and every pregnant celebrity, it seems, feels the need to pay lip service to 'good' motherhood. I swear if I read if one more celeb using the words 'wonderful' or 'amazing' to describe her pregnancy, I think I will hurl. When Halle Berry recently said she wished she could be pregnant 'forever', it was like nails grinding on a chalkboard. Nicole Kidman is 'thrilled' to be pregnant along with the rest of the world as the 600th rumour about her non-existent baby bump has finally come true and no doubt, motherhood at 40 will eclipse all of her independent achievements to date.

I'm just over it. What happened to the frank pregnant confessions of both elation and utter disgruntlement? I'm so sick of celebrity women going on about how great and easy pregnancy is and lapping up the adulation for daring to be naked and pregnant on a magazine cover when only last week it was decided that British mother Louise Manning is set to win up to £200,000
because she was harassed so profoundly at work. Forced to resign when she revealed she was pregnant, Manning's boss sent a memo stating:

"Louise’s pregnancy has quite naturally had an adverse effect on her ability, motivation and dedication."

Mothering is not easy and for many companies, pregnancy is the WORST career move a woman could ever make.

This is the world we live in. It's not all designer prams and expensive birthing suites. Average women, it seems, have to quite literally fight for their 'right' to have a career during pregnancy. Surely the birth of a child is a major life achievement for any woman but quite often it comes at the expense of her ability to achieve a work/life balance. The celebrities who rave about how easy pregnancy is completely undermine the everyday realities that most women face trying to juggle a family with a career or even in staying at home without the luxury of a nanny or a chef.

Source: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article3176474.ece

Mothers over 40

If you recall, in October, I wrote about 'Statistics That Piss Me Off'. In particular, it was statement about fertility, that well, pissed me off:

"Fertility Society of Australia spokeswoman Anne Clark warned that the decision to defer motherhood could have serious implications for national population growth: "This is not good news, because fertility levels change for women in their mid-30s and for men after 40, so you are going to have a lot of people pushing it to have more than two children."

In case you have been living in a hole, Nicole Kidman is pregnant. She will actually give birth when she is 41. Whereas the Australian media has been all about flogging mothers over 35 for being selfish and risking their health for no reason, in the last two days, almost every story about 'older' mothers is praiseworthy. For example:

NSW Midwives Association, Hannah Dahlen, said yesterday women should not be deterred.
"Older mothers are more likely to be educated and financially secure, more settled in themselves and more prepared to make the sacrifices required to be a mother," she said. "They are better able to negotiate care for their child, their children often do better in school, and it has also been shown in some studies that women who have babies in their 40s live longer."

Apparently, because Nicole Kidman 'looks' fit and healthy and wants a child so badly, apparently she is immune to any of the 'risks' associated with pregnancy over 40.

Sources: http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/the-risks--and-rewards--when-motherhood-begins-at-40/2008/01/08/1199554655649.html

Halle Berry: thrilled to be eating

I've said more than once that pregnancy is often the only culturally sanctioned time of life when women can be 'fat' and are expected to have big bellies (notwithstanding the fact that there are size zero maternity jeans). I wrote about Milla Jovovich and how her somewhat extreme weight gain (reportedly 70lbs) was most probably symptomatic of her inability to have a healthy relationship with food given her career as a model, and in fact, she confirmed this late in her pregnancy http://babybumpproject.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-more-more-milla-j-are-cravings.html

I was sad to read yesterday Halle Berry said this about her 7 months pregnant body:

"This is the first red carpet that I've really walked down where I didn't have to think about holding in my stomach – because I can't."It's the first time I've been to an awards show where they served a meal and I actually ate it – the whole thing," she said. "I was eating off everybody else's plate and that felt very liberating and good."

I think it's great that Halle feels 'liberated' as she says but I'm not surprised that she feels this way. Women are taught to suck in and push up and shove all the extra floppy bits away so no one can see them. When you're pregnant, clearly sucking in just isn't going to happen. But to think that these smart, funny, talented women have never been able to eat a proper meal in public because their dresses are too tight or because an armada of cameras are staring them down, at the ready to splash just how much they ate across the headlines of the tabloids, is just sad. I think most women who read this blog are guilty of indulging in the same self-defeating behaviours at some point in their life but why do we allow that? We should feel liberated to eat whenever we want, not just when we are growing another human life. Halle might feel free to indulge herself now but no doubt when that baby is born, like every other celebrity, she will be back in her jeans faster than she grew out of them.

Source: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20169669,00.html

When a sonogram is nothing to celebrate

Everywhere you look, fertility is fed to women on a slow drip from the time we are old enough to actually know what it means. Babies smile at us on TV to sell visions of idyllic family life. Pregnancy is used as a 40 week joy ride into the birth canals of celebrity women we don't really know personally, but 'know' where they bought their last latte, who their gynecologist is and when they have scheduled an elective caesar. 3D ultrasounds are marketed as baby's 'first photo' and as the first step to motherhood. The point is that being a parent is a not only marked as the most formative experience in any individual life, it is a market that never dries up for big companies. As much as we love to rhaposodise on the joys of parenting, we often forget that fertility is a privilege and not a given. Sure Hallmark is happy to sell 'It's a Girl' greeting cards, but 'My Uterus is Empty' cards are nowhere to be found. Celebrities are happy to blab to the media about how much money they have spent on the nursery but no one ever wants to reveal how much money they invested in IVF.

Here is a thought-provoking article from the New York Times about one woman's experience of 'failed' fertility:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/fashion/06love.html?ref=fashion

Indian wombs for rent

Considering India is well-known for being the mecca of American and Australian call-centres, it perhaps comes as no surprise that young Indian women are similarly outsourcing their wombs as they would their voices for wealthy, but infertile, American and European couples.

In Anand, a city in Gujarat famous for its milk, 15 young mothers live and together harmoniously as incubators for their paying customers. Commercial surrogacy is a thriving industry in India for women who want to help their own families and have a healthy body that can carry a pregnancy to term. The women of Anand are implanted with the in-vitro eggs and sperm from the infertile couples and carry the pregnancy to term, looked after by a staff of doctors, cooks and maids.

Critics of this new method of surrogacy are vocal in their dismay at hiring out poor women in developing countries to carry the risks of pregnancy and birth in countries where maternal mortality rates are alarmingly high. Moreover, in outsourcing pregnancy at 'cut-rate' prices, questions about baby farms and the value of 'Western' versus 'non-Western' women's bodies are at the forefront of ethical and moral feminist debates. However, proponents of the industry argue that women in Anand know the risks of pregnancy and are willing to part with the baby in order to make much needed money that overwhelmingly outweighs any sort of income a woman could achieve on her own. Suman Dodia, a pregnant, baby-faced 26-year-old, said she planned to buy a house with the $4,500 she would receive from the British couple whose child she’s carrying. It would have taken her 15 years to earn that on her maid’s monthly salary of $25.

Undeniably, questions of outsourcing pregnancy are just as uncomfortable as the more recent trends in outsourcing breast feeding (wet nursing). However, it is also uncomfortable for feminists to deny the agency of these Indian women in suggesting that they don't know what they are getting in to or are being forced to become surrogates. Clearly, this is an issue of voluntariness and how much risk these women are willing to accept for a specific sum of money (much like feminist debates over prostitution or stripping). There is a sort of funny Western moral panic surrounding women and the commodification of their reproductive bodies. Prostitution is still taboo despite the explosive porn and stripping industries in the US on the basis that women should not 'sell' their bodies for a profit, coupled with antiquated notions of femininity and chastity. Pregnancy outsourcing is no different; if women have wombs that can be 'sold' like a product and a woman's quality of life rises exponentially as a result of her better financial position, who are we to say that she is not allowed to outsource her womb?

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080101/jsp/nation/story_8731116.jsp