If J. Lo. is Pregnant, Let Her Tell Us Herself

The internet and news media are abuzz with stories, based on the testimony of unnamed sources, that Jennifer Lopez is pregnant, possibly with twins. Those unconfirmed stories allege that she’s been undergoing infertility treatments including in vitro fertilization. (See the image to the left from another web site speculating on Lopez.)

Let me pose a question to those who are so quick to jump on the story: What if she’s NOT pregnant? What if she’s waiting to make an announcement until she’s certain the pregnancy is viable, so that if the pregnancy results in a miscarriage she won’t have to suffer in public? Why can’t people just wait?

This — in case you haven’t read previous rants on the same subject – is a pet peeve of mine, this tendency to hyper-scrutinize the bodies of child-bearing-age celebrities and to run oftentimes false rumors about a celeb who they think is pregnant. (The media and internet are currently musing about whether another celebrity is pregnant.)

Speaking as someone with experience with both in vitro fertilization and miscarriages, I can tell you that there’s no more terrifying time than the first trimester of a pregnancy for which you’ve been longing for years. So stories hypothesizing about whether a celeb is pregnant are not only premature, but they can potentially be cruel and intrusive.

It seems as though every few weeks or so, there’s some report breathlessly relayed over the internet about some star who might be pregnant. Half (or more) of those stories wind up being incorrect. It seems as though folks are in such a hurry to be the first to declare that someone’s pregnant, that they don’t care if they’re wrong or if they force a celeb to come forward before they’re comfortable to speak publicly about a pregnancy.

Nicole Kidman recently told Vanity Fair that she’d suffered a miscarriage early on in her marriage to Tom Cruise. Lucky for her, the internet and blogs weren’t a media force back then or else her personal tragedy would likely have been globally dissected for others’ pleasure.

The bottom line: What harm is there in waiting for a celebrity to announce her pregnancy? The media will still get months to analyze images of her growing belly, still be able to gossip about what she’s buying at chic baby boutiques and critique her gestational style. What’s the rush?

(Image from this web site.)