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Famous Or Not, Expectant Mothers Want Privacy And Deserve Tact
Is Jennifer Lopez hiding a pregnancy under her clothing? Is it anyone's business?
(LISA ROSE / AP / October 14, 2007)
It's difficult to peg exactly when the merry tide turned, but at some point in the last two weeks the Hollywood bump watch went from cooing and congratulatory to downright agitated.
First actress-singer Jennifer Lopez, she of midriff-baring fame, suddenly adopted an uncharacteristic fondness for loose and flowing caftans. Giddy speculation kicked into high gear that Lopez and husband Marc Anthony were finally expecting the family she had long talked of wanting.
Then, said caftan went windswept during Lopez' concert performance this month at Mohegan Sun, revealing an unmistakable bulge. Sweet curiosity turned into genuine irritation -- the same now directed at Christina Aguilera. In the past few weeks, paparazzi have snapped the tight-lipped singer shopping at baby stores with her husband, protruding belly in tow.
Fans, celebrity gawkers and the press at large have demanded to know: Why - just why! - are these women refusing to confirm their obvious pregnancies?
The hoopla has some mothers wondering in return: When did our pregnant bellies become public property?
"Everyone gets excited about people getting pregnant in general. With celebrities, the obsession just goes way beyond," says Carley Roney, editor in chief of TheNestBaby.com, a new website for expecting mothers spun off from the popular wedding-planning site, TheKnot.com. "But for a lot of women, there's just something nice about having this big, fat secret that's only yours and your spouse's.
"There are such few things that we have that are really private these days. So sometimes, you just want the time to indulge in this personal secret."
Apparently, even if the curve of your belly belies the flimsy secret.
 Back in the world lived outside the glossy pages, the public's fixation with these famous baby bumps highlights the delicate balanced between congratulatory acknowledgement and respectful privacy. Should you ask -- can you ask? -- a woman if she's pregnant? What of the unspoken policy of allowing a couple the silent space of a first trimester?
The short answer, says Roney: Don't ask. Unless you're among the woman's closest of friends or family, she says it's best to wait for the mother to reveal it in her own time. Maybe she hasn't yet told her parents. Maybe she's holding off a workplace announcement, in the hopes of delaying the frowning questions over maternity leave, the barrage of unsolicited advice and the possible loss of authority among co-workers who may now see her through the gauzy lens of motherhood.
And maybe, as couples increasingly wait longer to start families, they really need the security of the 12-week safety zone before going public.
"You don't know the complications a woman may have been through. ... And you would feel really horribly if you put them in a position of having to [announce it], and then the next week something went wrong," says Roney, herself a mother of two who, at her own 13-week mark two weeks ago, just announced a third is on the way.
"Because there really is nothing worse than trying to think of the e-mail you'll have to send out to your friends: 'Uhhh ... it 'didn't stick.'"
That very concern is what prompted Debby Popkin of Southington to hold off her own announcement until she reached the safe zone.
"I had had a miscarriage several years ago, and it was just easier not to have to untell everybody, not have to stir up the grief all over again," says Popkin, 38. She and her husband are expecting their second child next month. "Plus, I just wanted it to be our special secret for a little while."
Popkin told certain circles a little earlier than others, and was generally able to keep it under wraps beyond her first trimester, when she started showing visibly. And that's right around when people began asking her the thinly veiled question "So, do you think you're going to have any more kids?" And when perfect strangers began approaching her in stores, asking her due date in front of her 4-year-old son, Toby?
"I kind of had to answer their questions a little cryptically," she says, laughing.
Roney, whose own friends and family suspected a pregnancy by the unconscious way she'd touch her budding bump, says there is a subtle approach in the asking that may work.
"There is a way of leaving the door open for them to tell you, without directly asking," she says. You can tell them how wonderful they look of late, and ask if they're doing anything differently. On the other hand, you can tactfully ask if they're doing all right, because they look under the weather.
"It gives them the opportunity to say, `You know, I've been dying to tell somebody.'" she says. "They may really need the comfort of their friends."
 Once the news is out, here is what not to do, says Roney.
Don't manhandle their bellies. Don't tell them you'd suspected it, with all that weight they'd put on. And don't ask if they're carrying twins. Leave the pregnancy horror stories for another time. And if they've had complications in the past, don't say a well-intentioned, "I hope this one works out."
"I think most of pregnancy faux pas are made because people really don't know what to say. It's understandable, because really they're just trying to find a way to connect. They don't realize a simple `I'm so happy for you. Congratulations!' is enough," says Roney, who was greeted with questions over whether her third pregnancy was planned.
"It's literally like asking about your birth control abilities. Or they'd ask, 'Is [husband] David happy?' And I'm thinking, 'No, I pulled a fast one on him.'"
Of the excitement, speculation, and growing frustration over Lopez and Aguilera, Joey Bartolomeo, senior writer at Us Weekly magazine, explains that pregnancy stories, like marriage stories, are a way for the general public to relate to the otherwise un-relatable starlets.
"It puts a celebrity on the same level as everyone else. It's just one of these natural things that happens in life that everyone can understand," says Bartolomeo, who has been bump-watching for the magazine. "And for Jennifer Lopez, I think this is someone who had talked about wanting to have a baby so much in the past, so it's something that everyone really wants to happen for her.
"I think people would like to celebrate for her and be excited for her. And the fact that she's not giving people that opportunity makes it them almost frustrated."
But as Whoopi Goldberg quipped recently on "The View," what exactly are these fans and celebrity watchers planning to do once the news is confirmed? Send a baby gift?
"I would say to people, just wait," says Popkin. "Just let [mothers] bring it out on their own time. Because whatever they're doing, however long they're waiting, they have a reason."
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