When Celebrities Can't Conceive: How Tabloids Handle the Infertility Issue
Or is it just me, and every tabloid magazine on the newsstand? It's hard not to think about babies, and all things baby-related, when you're trying to conceive. It's especially hard when every magazine you open has a celebrity bump watch, or some b.s. cover line.
In the grocery story today, I picked up Life and Style at the checkout line because of what's on their cover: A trifecta of Giuliana Rancic, with details inside her "emotional baby shower" (which some of my friends attended, they're having a boy!); Khloe Kardashian, with a cover line that reads: "IVF Miracle: Finally, Khloe's baby dreams come true"; and Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Zolciak, "Six months pregnant and losing her home."
PLUS: Q&A with Alicia Silverstone on Life as a Mom
I naively picked it up for the story about Khloe Kardashian and her IVF "miracle," hoping to read an uplifting IVF success story. The headline inside read: "Khloe: I'm Going to Be a Mom"-okay, so far so good. But the piece tells a different story, about Khloe going to L.A.'s ART Reproductive Center to have blood drawn to test her hormone levels "in order to see what needs to be done to finally make her baby dreams come true."
A bit misleading, wouldn't you say?
"Khloe's nervous and excited," reveals a friend in the article. "It will likely be a long process-this was just a first meeting. The hope is that she will be pregnant by Christmas. Khloe would be thrilled if it were twins or even triplets."
Where do I start with this nonsense?
Then the article goes on to say that when Khloe turns 28 on June 27, next week, she'll be deep into her second round of fertility treatments. Now I'm really confused. Didn't it just say she was just at her first appointment? And why does the headline read: "I'm Going to Be a Mom"?
PLUS: Alyson Hannigan on Her Second Pregnancy
Obviously to get idiots like me to read their magazine.
Then Life & Style sticks a story about all the celebrity moms who are actually expecting next to the bogus article about Khloe becoming a mom. It was the pages that followed-"Everybody's Expecting!"-that pissed me off. Reese Witherspoon (with her 3rd); Drew Barrymore (her 1st); Gisele Bundchen (2nd); and
Snooki (1st), who apparently won't have sex while she's pregnant, which I find hard to believe, considering I just read in Us that she wants to have sex all the time now in her second trimester. Get your facts straight!
Then of course Kourtney Kardashian (Khloe's sister, pregnant with no. 2), is planning a water birth, because pulling son Mason out of her own vagina wasn't quite adventurous enough (seriously, no judgment here, it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen on reality TV). More pregnant women include: Megan Fox (reportedly preg with her 1st); Melissa Joan Hart (3rd); Sienna Miller (1st); Kristin Cavallari (1st); Uma Thurman (3rd); Molly Sims (1st); and Tori Spelling, who's officially (that is, according to Life and Style) on bed rest while pregnant with her fourth child, at age 39.
PLUS: Kourtney Kardashian on Motherhood
Amidst all this exciting celebrity baby news, all I could think was: Poor Khloe had to be featured next to all these women, her sister and peers, who are actually expecting babies. Going through fertility treatments, or starting IVF, does not mean she will be pregnant by Christmas. For her sake, I hope it works for her sooner than later, but it's certainly not a guarantee.
But I admit it: I'll be watching to see it all unfold on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which will be airing Khloe and Lamar's infertility struggles this season.
Does our culture's obsession with celebrity baby bumps annoy you, or make you feel somewhat hopeful? For the most part I'm usually into it, but when I read things about Gisele's weight-gain fears, I want to gag.
