Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Eeeuuuw. Yuck…

NOTE: another randomly-updated blast from my past. (Originally published in my weekly column, Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, 1992) [Image credit: Demi Moore’s iconic pregnancy photo by Annie Leibowitz for Vanity Fair, August, 1991]

With ten kids, my mother was pregnant for 7 1/2 years of her life. But she never made the cover of Vanity Fair—with or without her maternity clothes. Maybe that’s because in her day, pregnant women only appeared in maternity dresses made by Omar the Tentmaker out of 75 yards of black polyester with a contrasting bow at the neck.

My own views of pregnancy have changed over the years:

Age 5—With an Irish-Catholic mother, I think natural childbirth is what happens when you use the rhythm method of birth control.

Me: “Where’s Mommy?”

My Father: “Well, naturally, she’s in the hospital having another baby.”

Me: “You don’t mean…”

My Father: “Yes, I’ll…