Like any other movement embraced by celebrities, pregnancy has acquired, over the past couple of years a sort of hip cachet. It's a fashion, literally, and with enceinte moppets like Hudson and Liv Tyler chewing up press pages, elder flashbulb chasers like Demi Moore (who some maintain is the ur-goddess of the fecund celebrity after her alabaster-skinned nude cover for Vanity Fair in 1991) and Madonna are getting in on the act, by hinting that they too will soon be signing up for another tour of gestational duty. But it's an oddly retro trend. SUNY Buffalo art historian Elizabeth Otto pointed out that the wave of pregnancy porn speaks to a return to less graphic depictions of femininity from the 1950s -- "the intense interest in home life, home decorating and furnishing ... ideal womanhood as motherhood" -- that filled the pages of Life magazine.

And then there's how bad this can make the rest of us feel. After all, as we're sitting around thinking deeply about how much we have in common with Heidi Klum, we may also be casually considering just how much better she looked in that multicolored muumuu than we would have. While improved fashion choices may mean freedom for women who want to continue to party in front of cameras during their confinement, they are a whole other kind of oppression for those of us flipping through the photographs, Dr. Scholls and Preparation H piled high beside us. Designer Lange said, "I never intended to do this but there is more of a pressure now. There's the idea that you can't actually let yourself go, you have to look great. You can't just schlump around in your husband's big shirt."

And please, please don't schlump around in your husband's shirt if you're Jennifer Aniston. The actress who married actor Brad Pitt four years ago has not yet had a baby, though both she and her husband have spoken about the possibility in interviews. And that's all the chum the press has needed to fly into a full feeding frenzy. There has been so much fervid speculation about Aniston's fertility that she has mocked it herself on "Saturday Night Live." For the past two weeks in a row, In Touch's cover stories wondered whether Aniston (and/or Jennifer Lopez) was pregnant. There is no evidence that she is.

"Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt's baby is the most anticipated baby in the world since Lady Di and Prince Charles, and the whole world wants this beautiful creation to happen," said In Touch's Wakeford of why his publication continues to herald this phantom embryo. To be fair, that kind of excitement over the prince and princess of Wales in the early 1980s, no matter how overblown, had at least a tenuous link to history. Charles and Di's "heir" and their "spare" would be in line for the British throne. The only throne baby Pitt is likely to line up for is in the Fred Segal powder room. But the as-yet-imaginary Pitt-Aniston zygote has taken on a royal, if not biblical, place in the media's imagination. As Star's Dolce said, "In the celebrity lexicon, they are the perfect couple. Therefore they must go on and reproduce, to make perfect progeny."

Min said that the treatment Aniston is receiving makes her just like every other newlywed who gets relentlessly grilled about when she'll reproduce. "Baby-watch is a big American spectator sport," said Min, noting dryly that she and her husband were married for seven years before they decided to have a child. But it's not a new sport, nor is it uniquely American. In Jan van Eyck's 15th century Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, Broude noted, "the bride wasn't pregnant but the depicted pregnancy (covered of course by robes) was a projected wish for fertility in marriage." Woe betide Aniston should she fail to reproduce. Lana Thompson, an anthropologist and the author of "The Wandering Womb: A Cultural History of Outrageous Beliefs About Women," said ominously, "They would kill women who were married to kings who didn't produce heirs."

"Honestly I think it's reached a level of absurdity when there's a cover every single week asking 'Is Jennifer Pregnant?'" said Nelson. "You have to say at some point, give the woman a break."

She's not likely to get one. Min said that the fever is long from breaking. "Pregnancy mania is running so high right now that often we get photos in from agencies and the captions from the agencies read, 'Is she pregnant or did she just have a big meal?'" said Min. "It's very Salem witch trials, but in a more positive way of course. We hunt down and find the next pregnant person."

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