LilSugar

Baby Mama Amy Poehler Is Pregnant!

LilSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:48:11 -0700

The world has gone gaga for comedian Amy Poehler. The 36-year-old and her husband Will Arnett are starting a family, with their first baby due this Fall.

According to People, the mama-to-be has been busy. It said:

This has been a big week for Poehler. Baby Mama, costarring Tina Fey, landed in the No. 1 box-office spot this weekend, and her Nickelodeon show, The Mighty B, also debuted.

Congratulations!

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Baby Mama Quiz

LilSugar — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:00:00 -0700

Baby Mama hits theaters today. Have you been reading our interviews with the cast?

Take this quiz to test your knowledge.
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Baby Mama Interview: Sigourney Weaver

LilSugar — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:00:13 -0700

Working girl Sigourney Weaver plays Chaffee Bicknell, the head of the surrogacy firm in Baby Mama.

Though Weaver only shares a few scenes with the film’s stars, her presence is felt throughout the film.

To read more about her role and how her experience as an older mom influenced the movie, read more.

Weaver plays a smart, motivated woman who has the enviable ability, unlike her clients, to easily get pregnant. The actress entered motherhood at the age of 40.

While “older moms” are common these days, they were not the norm 18 years ago. Weaver said:

I remember when I was carrying my daughter they referred to me as an elderly prima pare, or something like that, and the word elderly stuck out. And I felt, you know, phew, I had her just in time before I turned into a pumpkin or something. And I actually think the film will help surrogate motherhood get a different exposure. I really do believe what my character says that there is no wrong way to have a family as long as the welfare of the child and the health of everybody is kept in mind.

She also discussed why all women will relate to this movie:

One of the things I admire about the movie is that there are things included in it that are true and really humiliating for women. Like the doctor who says your uterus is upside down or it is shaped like a shoe or your eggs have crossed eyes or whatever awful things they say to you. You are by yourself and you go, ‘Well this isn’t really funny and this is heartbreaking.’ So they really brought in this whole experience and gave us a great chance to laugh about it. I think it really is a great gift to audiences because so many people have been through this.

Weaver also provided insight on the ways parenthood has changed from generation to generation and how satisfying it is to be a working woman:

I think that parenthood in the last 25 years has changed . . . I think in the old days women stayed home and children were left to their own devices to grow up. There wasn’t this intense focus on the child and the development of the child and doing the homework. My parents never really did homework with me, my G-d! So I just think that our focus on children includes my generation as a parent.

I guess the big challenge for a mother is that if you are a working woman there are these separations that you have to deal with. Once a child gets older they are much harder on the mother than they are on the child. But I think that the good thing is that the child grows up knowing that work is something that’s desirable, fun, exciting, stimulating, not just something you have to do. So I think it was interesting to try to go back and forth. I definitely think that motherhood was the most satisfying job that I had. My daughter’s going off to college so I don’t know what I’ll do with myself it will be so quiet and neat at home!

Baby Mama Interview: Michael McCullers

LilSugar — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:00:23 -0700

What's a man know about being a baby mama?

A lot if you're Michael McCullers, the father of three who wrote and directed the must see movie that hits theaters Friday.

Having previously written Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember, McCullers met with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler who he worked with at Saturday Night Live to brainstorm ideas for a film they could work on together. When Fey mentioned that she would like to make a modern day version of the Diane Keaton film Baby Boom, the group developed the idea of a surrogate pregnancy and the story was hatched.

To see how a man was able to delve into the minds of expectant mothers, read more.

Since he had two children at home and another on the way, McCullers had plenty of crazy pregnancy stories to write into the script. His initial drafts of the film were fine-tuned by Fey and Poehler to ensure that their characters accurately reflected the personalities of an expectant yuppie mom and her less classy surrogate.

Knowing that people would question the idea of a man writing about pregnancy and babymaking, McCullers addressed the question directly:

Am I the best person to write and direct that idea, being a guy? Although I am not a baby-crazed woman, I do live with a baby-crazed woman, which helped. My wife is one of these women who knew early on that she wanted kids. At that point we already had two kids and during the course of the movie we were actually trying to have a third and ended up having a baby while the movie was shooting. So I did have a pregnant wife at home [and] it helped me relate, though I didn’t see her very much.

I’m in my 30s and I’ve started to know a lot of women who are dealing with infertility. All of the sudden infertility and who can have a baby and who can’t has become a big issue with a lot of people in my life. And although there is a lot of anger and emotion that comes with that, there is, at least with the people I know, a lot of humor and funny stuff that goes with it.

Given the sometimes derogatory definition of the term “baby mama,” McCullers also discussed his decision to use the term for the movie’s title:

I saw that phrase migrating into the greater popular culture. People Magazine and Page Six and everyone sort of uses the term baby mama now. Its almost [gone] from unwed mother of your child to just the mother of a child. You know, they’ll say Tom Cruise’s baby mama or whatever, in US Weekly and it seems to be entering into pop culture. And I liked the way it sounded and looked.

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Baby Mama Interview: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

LilSugar — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:00:35 -0700

Baby Mama takes a comedic approach to fertility.

Tina Fey plays a successful businesswoman yearning to have a child. After learning she has a million in one chance of getting pregnant, she finds a surrogacy center and begins the process of finding a baby mama, played by Amy Poehler.

When asked about the research they conducted into birthing centers and natural birth methods, the actresses discussed the experts they had on set:

Tina Fey: We had some experts on set who were wonderful, like very earthy women who came up to me and were like (in a breathy voice), "Are you thinking about having another child now?" and I was like "No," and she was like "You should consider a water birth" and I’m like, "Didn’t you hear the part where I said no!"
Amy Poehler: The same woman was telling pregnant people in like their 9th month . . .
TF: Because a lot of the other women in the class were very, very pregnant . . .
AP: And she was explaining nice ways to make love and the women were like, "Uh, no."
TF: But by the end of it, I did want to have a water birth.
AP: You don't need to have a baby to have a water birth.

To read the rest of the interview, read more.
They were also asked about the stress that new parents face today and the differences that go into raising a city child:

TF: My daughter starts preschool next year so I just went through the process of taking her to her preschool interviews and you are just hoping "Please don’t poop yourself during that time."
AP: Did she wear a little power suit?
TF: Yeah, she had a little power suit!
AP: And did she have a teeny tiny brief case?
TF: She had little teeny tiny resumes.
AP: Made of candy!
TF: Yeah, she ate it. That you don’t find in the suburbs.
AP: Yeah I like that moment [in the film] where they say Wingspan and Banjo do you want to play with Groovy and Cheyenne?

Given Fey’s decision to give her daughter a traditional name Alice, we asked the women about Hollywood’s penchant for giving their children odd names:

TF: I like interesting names. My daughter’s middle name is sort of unusual, but they are all family names. I think that when you have a kid you have to try to think that when this child is an adult, how is this name going to suit the person. I like the name Apple.
AP: I’m just gonna name my kids numbers. New Dude, Little Dude, and eight George Foremans.

With Knocked Up and Juno having already covered pregnancy over the past year, the women were also asked why Hollywood is giving pregnancy so much attention:

TF: I think it is a universal experience and there may be a generation of comedy writers that are hitting that age where they all have kids and the guys would have written their dating fantasy comedies 15 years ago. People write what they know and it might be a generational thing.
AP: I think that Juno is very different from Knocked Up and our film is very different from that too. They’re all kind of different. Although they all tend to deal with a similar topic that’s really where it ends. But I think that our film is in the same way as Knocked Up it's just kind of straight up . . . with jokes.

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Countdown to Baby Mama!

LilSugar — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:00:40 -0700

Baby mama drama makes for great comedy.

As Buzz mentioned, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are co-starring in Baby Mama, a hysterical new movie about motherhood that opens Friday.

An updated, female version of the Odd Couple, the flick revolves around Fey's character - a 37-year-old organic food executive who yearns for a baby - and her unemployed, junk food-eating surrogate that Poehler portrays.

The movie makes the most of the mama-to-be moments from Lamaze classes to baby-proofing and test-driving top-of-the line strollers.

I attended the Baby Mama press junket where Fey, Poehler, Sigourney Weaver and writer and director, Michael McCullers dished about making the film. This week we'll be running all the tidbits, so tune in tomorrow to see what funny women Fey and Poehler had to say. In the meantime to check out the trailer, read more.

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Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me? The EVOO Massage

LilSugar — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:00:42 -0700

When you get pregnant you have to give up being self conscious about a handful of areas on your body. One of them is the perineum. The perineum being the muscular area just below the vagina that has to stretch during childbirth in order for your little one to be born. Why, must you forgo your fears of the area? Researchers have found that women who massage their perinea before childbirth have fewer episiotomies, a surgical incision through the perineum made to enlarge the vagina and assist childbirth.

Luckily, my doctors made me fully aware of this procedure before it became an issue, but iVillage's exclusive clip from Tina Fey's new movie Baby Mama reminded me how important the EVOO massage can be and how dreadful the experience might be for someone who hadn't been debriefed on the subject.

For tips on how the EVOO massage actually works, read more.

Michael M. Beckmann, MD, and Andrea J. Garrett of the QE2 Jubilee Hospital in Queensland, Australia told WebMD:

"Woman or partner performed daily 5- to 10-minute perineal massage from 34 weeks [of pregnancy]. One or two fingers are introduced 5 centimeters [about 2 inches] into the vagina, applying alternating downward and sideward pressure using sweet almond oil."

For more about episiotomies check out the WebMD guide. If you need a laugh now you can try and win tickets to a special screening of Baby Mama and check out exclusive previews of the flick.

Lil Links: Sneak Peek at Baby Mama

LilSugar — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:00:54 -0700

Win tickets to a special screening of Baby Mama and check out exclusive previews of the flick. Ahhh, the baby-proofing memories - iVillage
Modern day playing house - The Imperfect Parent
Wet spots - The Poop
Reese Witherspoon played teacher in New Orleans - Parent Dish
Sir Paul McCartney writes and dedicates song to Beatrice - Celebrity Baby Blog
Jason Bateman gives his lil girl a lift - Celebrity Baby Scoop

Would You Consider Being a Surrogate?

LilSugar — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:00:53 -0700

The hilarious Tina Fey's Baby Mama hits theaters soon. And, while the flick offers a comedic take on the womb-for-rent relationship, surrogacy is a timely issue with more and more women waiting until later in life to have children. And a number of hopeful moms-to-be having fertility issues.

Actress Deirdre Hall and journalist, Joan Lunden are two well known women who were very public about their use of surrogates. Though twelve states including New York don't consider the surrogate contracts between biological and adoptive mothers valid, California and a few others regulate the legalized practice. To finish this piece, read more.

A recent piece in Newsweek that focused on the women bearing the babies was particularly poignant saying that while the practice is a labor of love, it also involves a financial transaction. It said:

But what kind of woman would carry a child to term, only to hand him over moments after birth? Surrogates challenge our most basic ideas about motherhood, and call into question what we've always thought of as an unbreakable bond between mother and child.

Would you carry a child for a family member, friend or stranger?

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Model Mamas Hit the Runway For Victoria's Secret

babysugar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:03:15 -0800

Host, shmost! Heidi Klum claimed she was only going to host the always anticipated Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, but the mama of four made a surprise appearance and walked her hot self down the runway with her tulleriffic attire. Having given birth to her second daughter, Lou, just over a month ago, she left the crowd in shock and awe. Also in attendance on the catwalk? Alessandra Ambrosio. The leggy new mom bared her toned tummy and long stems alongside veteran Klum. The pair certainly left some mums green with envy.

A couple of ladies noticeably absent from the show? Gisele Bündchen, Karolina Kurkova, and Adriana Lima. Gisele is still sporting her adorable baby bump, while the other two glamorous mommies just welcomed their bundles of joy weeks ago. Check out the pictures of the sassy and sexy angels at last night's sneak peek.

To see the rest of the photos, just read more.

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