The State of Parenthood

I watched something pretty scary this morning.

A re-run of Oprah.

A re-run is scarier than the first time around because it means I know the outcome, but I'm still watching.

The train wreck on today's show was Martha Stewart's only child, Alexis, who, at 40-ish, has been trying to get pregnant. Something about her mom wanting a grandchild.

I wrote about the show the first time around too, but frankly, I don't care if I do it again. My memory being what it is and all.

Apparently Alexis tried making babies the old fashioned way when she was married -- without success. I'm sure like most women, she tried it several times the old fashioned way after her divorce, too. Nothing wrong with practice, practice, practice.

But time is running short. Her eggs are getting wrinkled. Since she is clearly a woman who typifies the way her generation thinks, she's decided she can do it by herself.

So she's eliminated the middleman, as it were, and taken the high tech highway. Sounds like every month she has been giving herself hormone shots to artificially stimulate the eggs to maturity -- no sense in having to wait for a relationship these days. Not when you can speed up the process, even though it means running the risk of getting ovarian cancer instead. Leave it to Mrs. L to throw a damper into all this.

After all the foreplay shots, Alexis has a romantic interlude with people in sterile gowns and gloves, who invade her ovaries each month and harvest the eggs, put one in a petri dish, look at it under a microscope, shove a needle into it with donor sperm, make sure the egg is fertilized, let it grow for awhile, then suck it up into a pipette and blow it back into her uterus.

Does Hallmark have a card for this?

The thing is, none of these sterile procedures is getting her pregnant. Surrogate anyone? Surrogate? Of course as Martha's daughter, a surrogate would be tantamount to substituting margarine in a good recipe.

Meanwhile, every time Alexis goes through this drill, pardon the expression, you can chalk up another month that she ups her risk of ovarian cancer. Sorry, I just had to bring that up because it is the elephant in the room.

Mrs. Linklater thinks she has a way to help.

Hey, you in the back there, stop laughing.

Mrs. Linklater's theory of how to get pregnant is based on the number of women who finally adopt a child, only to have their own naturally conceived baby arrive within a year. Those of you who have suffered through this before with Mrs. Linklater can skip to the end.

The secret? Pheromones -- the subliminal scents that rev up the babymaking hormones. Grease the rusty spigot with some mothering juices and voy-la, you're p.g.

Step One: Alexis should stop trying to look like a replicant from Bladerunner. On Oprah, her hair was cut so close to her head it looked like a helmet. This makes her appear very androgenous. Combined with her extremely heavy eye makeup, yet colorless lips, along with her above average height, and she could pass for a drag queen. Wrong pheromones.

Enough with the sexual ambiguity, she's got to go girly. Let the hair grow. Cultivate a natural look with less eye stuff and a little more pink on the lips. Wear dresses. You look girly, you feel girly. That way pheromones don't get confused.

Step Two: Alexis should stop hanging out with her menopausal mother every day. Or spending time with other goal oriented, career-driven women. Pheromones for babymaking do not thrive in that environment. If she wants to get pregnant, she needs to hang out with women who are already pregnant and having babies. They leak pheromones.

Step Two Part Deux: To help her pheromones thrive, Alexis should start watching Lifetime in place of Charlie Rose. She should begin taking long baths with candles. Without her Blackberry in the room. She should put down her Wall Street Journal and start to read "What to Expect When You're Expecting." 

While she's at it she should feel free to satisfy her cravings for ice cream or macaroni and cheese. Perhaps offer to babysit for her friends. The smell of infants is perhaps the most powerful pheromone for women trying to make babies. Even the nausea from poopy diapers has an upside. It's good practice for morning sickness. 

My concern is that Alexis is going about this pregnancy thing with all the emotion of finding a good parking place. She's invested on an intellectual level, but doesn't seem to be in touch with her feelings.

Step 2.5: Have I mentioned hiring a surrogate? Adoption? A dog?

Step Three: No offense to the WASPs of America, but Alexis is like Sydney or any of those other boy names converted for girl use. They get shortened to Alex, Al, or Syd. Mrs. L thinks those kinds of neutral names are serious pheromone killers. Perhaps Alexis should try a new name for a while. Even better, she should apply for witness protection and try living a new life. Call herself Ashley. Live in a small town. Shop at Wall-Mart. Eat dessert at the Dairy Queen. Have drunken sex with a guy named Bubba in a pick up truck. Get pregnant.

Aha.

Tags: Martha Stewart's Daughter,