This story is in In Touch, so who knows if it’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised. They’re claiming that Jessica Simpson was enrolled in Lamaze classes to prepare for the birth of her baby in April (I still can’t believe she’s only six months along) but that she dropped out and scheduled a c-section. Jessica’s sister Ashlee was in labor for 3 days, which In Touch claims heavily influenced Jessica’s decision to say “screw it” and not bother trying for a natural birth.

Jessica Simpson has dropped out of… Lamaze… She was taking the classes with her fiance, Eric Johnson, but after a few lessons, she decided to skip natural childbirth and schedule a C-section instead. Jessica’s younger sister, Ashlee, was in labor for nearly three days, and going through the Lamaze classes reminded Jessica, 31, of what Ashlee endured. “Jessica can’t wait to become a mother, but she quickly decided that giving birth the old-fashioned way just wasn’t for her. So she is planning a C-section in late April,” a friend says. “She’s already booked a $2,800 suite at Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA.”

[From In Touch, print edition, January 23, 2012]

I’ve mentioned before that I had my son in a birth center without medication, but I did it due to a fear of doctors and hospitals, not for any noble reason. My husband and I took Bradley Method classes, and I dropped out about 1/2 way through as the classes were boring and I totally thought I had it down. I was so wrong. Labor was calm and fine for me, but when I got to the pushing part I was unprepared for what a total bitch it was. I never should have ditched those classes. Maybe Jess saw some birthing videos or read some materials in class that made her realize it wasn’t for her. To each their own when it comes to such a personal matter and I don’t blame her. She didn’t go into it thinking she was too posh to push, she just realized it before it was down to the wire.

Also, people may think that a $2,800 suite is excessive, and it very well may be. The birthing center I went to cost $5,000, but that included everything and my insurance covered it. That’s just for the birth and 12 hours of convalescing. They don’t even have a doctor there, it’s all midwives. After 12 hours they kick you out, but a midwife came to visit me at home the next day to make sure that the baby and I were fine. If you have an emergency during delivery they just transfer you to the hospital next door. It’s expensive to have a baby.

Jessica is shown on 1-6-12 and 12-3-11, credit: WENN.com and KM/FameFlynet Pictures

For the fans of Project Runway, last week’s episode featuring a “maternity” challenge was exciting. Since it was filmed many months ago, we got to see a very pregnant Rebecca Romijn as the judge – and she was good! I enjoyed seeing Heidi Klum and Rebecca interact with another – they seemed very close. But the show was just a reminder that Rebecca gave birth back in January - and that the current season of Project Runway is nearly one year old. But never mind about that – beggars can’t be choosers, and I need my Project Runway fix.

Jerry O’Connell is opening up about Rebecca’s pregnancy, the birth of their twin girls Dolly and Charlie, and how Rebecca’s losing the weight. I’ve always been kind of “meh” about Jerry, but he comes across as really sweet and a little clueless in this interview, to Fox News Pop Tarts. Jerry describes his lack of any desire to watch the birth of his twin girls, which is something I can completely understand. Granted, I’ve never been pregnant or anything, but if and when it happens, I think I’ll tell my husband/partner that it’s okay not to look. Jerry also talks about how oblivious he is as to whether Rebecca is dieting:

Jerry O’Connell is the proud father of twin girls Dolly Rebecca Rose and Charlie Tamara Tulip, but the “Stand By Me” star couldn’t actually stand by his wife with his eyes open during their birth last December.

“I was there for the birth but I did not look though. A friend of mine said ‘listen, I’ve looked so I’m giving you a piece of advice – I don’t think you should look’ so I didn’t actually see anything,” O’Connell told Tarts at the Much Love Animal Rescue Dinner in Hollywood on the weekend.

But when we asked if his swimsuit supermodel wife Rebecca Romijn was back to her perfect pre-pregnancy body, he did hesitate a little.

“Yes… yes I guess she is. She looks great, back into the pilates,” O’Connell said. “She’s stopped breast-feeding so it slows down a little, I don’t know the particulars. But we had a very large lunch today and we had dessert so I don’t think she’s dieting per se.”

Romijn has infact bounced back to work and is busy filming ABC’s new supernatural series “Eastwick”, prompting O’Connell to enroll in law school.

“I got the short straw for not working so I’m going to grad school part-time. I can do my homework and watch the kids at the same time,” he added. “But Rebecca misses the girls a lot when she’s at work so I bring them around and let them bother her on set.”

[From Fox News]

He’s cute, right? I thought this was really sweet. I know there are a lot of women who are like “he must experience every aspect of childbirth, including how dilated my vadge is” but that just seems like the kind of thing that scars most men. In another recent interview he told E! News that he and Rebecca aren’t interesting in having any more babies: “This is it. Factory closed. It’s over. Now we’re just adopting dogs.”

He also described taking his daughters to Rebecca’s Eastwick set, and said: “The hardest thing is being in a public place like a store or a restaurant—or on your wife’s TV show set!—and smelling number two, and knowing it’s one of your children. Those situations are always embarrassing. I went to my wife’s work yesterday, and she was in the middle of a very dramatic scene. And I had the kids there, and one of them was like, ‘Bwaaahhh.’ It was very verbal and busted the scene up. I thought it was funny, but I don’t think the director did, so I got the heck out of there. I had a long talk with the girls about show business, but I don’t think they had any idea what the heck I was talking about.”

Okay, they’re now one of my new favorite couples. Jerry is so cute about his girls. I think at this point, he’s just happy to be a stay-at-home dad… which is really cool. Jerry is going to law school part-time now, LA’s Southwestern Law School. When he announced it a few weeks ago, he said “I had always planned on continuing my education at some point and because my wife is working on Eastwick, which is on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. this fall, and I’m home all day with the girls, I figured I would take a couple of classes at night. It was either that or play video games until 2 a.m.”

Jerry O’Connell is shown with his twins on 8/12/09. Credit: Fame Pictures

Whoever thought anything as gooey and gelatinous as a placenta would become so hip in Hollywood? I’m telling you, it is the foetomaternal organ of choice for celebrities these days. A few years ago there was that whole “I swear I was joking incident” when Tom Cruise said he was going to eat Suri’s placenta. Which we all know was not a joke. Although I still think it was rude of Tom not to offer it to Suri. It was her placenta after all.

Now Matthew McConaughey has jumped on the celebrity placenta bandwagon. Actually since there’s only two celebs involved, I think it’s more like a tandem bike at this point. So Matthew has taken up the seat right behind Tom Cruise and decided to go indigenous on son Levi’s placenta. He’s going to bury it underneath a fruit tree.

Matthew McConaughey is giving new meaning to the term “fruit of one’s loins.”

The quirky hunk has saved the placenta from the birth of his son, Levi, and he says he’s going to plant that membranous fetal envelope in his yard, according to McConaughey’s recent interview with CNN’s House Call With Dr. Sanjay Gupta, which will be televised in two parts Aug. 9 and Aug. 16.

“It’s going to be in the orchards, and it’s going to bear some wonderful fruit,” the actor said, per a transcript of the very informative sit-down. “When I was in Australia, they had a placenta tree that was on the river…and all the placentas of all that tribe, all that clan, whatever aboriginal tribe that was, all the placentas went under that one tree and it was this huge behemoth of just health and strength.

“This tree was just growing taller and stronger above the rest of Mother Nature around it. It was gorgeous.” Beautiful sentiment, yes. Tribal and earthy and natural, yes. But we still recommend taking a pass on the fruit salad when you’re partying at McConaughey’s house.

[From E! News]

This is actually not that uncommon. I spent a little time on Wikipedia and Googled “afterbirth” (by the way, never do that and click the “images” button; those pictures will stay with you for a long, long time); and it turns out all sorts of cultures do interesting and useful things with placentas.

The Māori of New Zealand traditionally bury the placenta from a newborn child to emphasize the relationship between humans and the earth… The Kwakiutl of British Columbia bury girls’ placentas to give the girl skill in digging clams, and expose boys’ placentas to ravens to encourage future prophetic visions… Nepalese think of the placenta as a friend of the baby’s; Malaysian Orang Asli regard it as the baby’s older sibling. The Ibo of Nigeria consider the placenta the deceased twin of the baby, and conduct full funeral rites for it. Native Hawaiians believe that the placenta is a part of the baby, and traditionally plant it with a tree which can then grow alongside the child.

[From Wikipedia]

So everything considered, Matthew and Camila planting Levi’s placenta actually has a long and interesting – and some might say beautiful – history to it. And they haven’t made any threats of consuming it. Which, I found out, would be called “placentophagy,” if they actually pulled a Tom Cruise. Wikipedia is absolutely fabulous.

Thanks to OK! for these photos, where there are many more.

Thank God Jennifer Lopez is not such a self-absorbed diva that she thinks the world actually revolves around her. Wait, what? TMZ is reporting that the hospital where J-Lo is expected to give birth has been running anti-kidnapping drills in anticipation of her twins’ arrival. Though they don’t come out and actually say it, I’m pretty sure they’re doing it on J-Lo’s orders.

TMZ has learned that the Long Island hospital where J.Lo will probably give birth to her twins is practicing “pink drills” — code for thwarting a possible kidnapping.

Sources at North Shore Medical Center tell TMZ the hospital conducted a “Code Pink” drill last Friday — “Code Pink” is code for locking down the hospital to prevent a kidnapping attempt.

A rep for North Shore confirmed that the pink drill did indeed go down, but said that the timing is just a coincidence, but that’s not what our sources are saying.

[From TMZ]

Code Pink doesn’t sound nearly as effective as Code Black or even Code Blue. They need to pick scarier sounding colors to thwart kidnappers, that’s step number one. Something tells me that J-Lo and Skeltor will probably have their own private security at the hospital anyway… and the odds are pretty good they’re sticking the kids with little GPS chips as soon as they cut the cord.

I have no idea if this is normal for hospitals when famous people have babies. Maybe they all do it. One would hope that they all run drills consistently for the sake of all their patients, since no one baby is more valuable than the other. Though to be fair, J-Lo is having two babies, so I guess by that logic they’re twice as valuable. Seriously though, are her kids at any greater risk of being kidnapped than other celeb babies? You know at least one of them is going to be born all inside-out looking like their father. That’s a good crime deterrent right there.

Here’s J-Lo and Marc Anthony at Madonna’s “Raising Malawai” event on February 6th.

It is officially impossible to tell who won the birth-off between Christina Aguilera and Nicole Richie. It was confirmed by People around 6:00 p.m. PST yesterday that Nicole had given birth to a daughter and was on her way home. No word on what time the baby arrived. It’s also being confirmed by about half the celeb websites that Christina Aguilera also gave birth yesterday, sometime around 4:00 p.m. PST. Yet a few places are reporting that Aguilera’s rep says she’s still pregnant. Frankly considering how long Christina kept mum about being pregnant in the first place, I won’t necessarily believe what a rep says. According to E!, Fox News, and Star, Christina gave birth yesterday afternoon at Cedars-Sinai.

Suddenly there’s a whole new meaning to “Come On Over Baby” for Christina Aguilera. The five-time Grammy winner and hubby Jordan Bratman welcomed their first child in Los Angeles on Friday.

The couple announced the birth in a quick text message to friends and family around 4 p.m.: “Baby has arrived. Mom and dad are doing well!” (Apparently not even the prospect of dirrty diapers can dampen their spirits.)

There were no further details immediately available. “As soon as I have more information I will let you know,” the singer’s rep said.

Christina Aguilera, 27, reportedly delivered her baby on Friday, Jan. 11, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the same hospital that Nicole Richie had her baby girl Harlow Winter Kate Madden just hours earlier.

[From E! News]

I think it’s pretty likely Christina did in fact have the baby yesterday, and is keeping it quiet. I doubt it’s for privacy’s sake – if anything, it increases the attention. Which is probably the point. It’s thought Christina is having a boy, since she had a blue-themed baby shower. Hopefully we’ll hear something official in the next few hours.

Update by Celebitchy: Christina Aguilera had a baby boy, but not Friday as some outlets reported. Her rep confirms to People that she had a boy named Max Liron Bratman on Saturday night at 10:05 pm and that he weighed in at 6 lbs., 2 oz. and was 20.5 inches tall. Congratulations to Christina and Jordan and welcome Max.

It looks like it’s no longer neck and neck… or in this case uterus and uterus… between who will give birth first, Christina Aguilera or Nicole Richie. Us Weekly is reporting that Nicole, 26, is in labor at Cedars-Sinai right now. Christina was widely believed to be due before Nicole, though these things obviously aren’t an exact science.

Nicole Richie is giving birth. Joel Madden was spotted walking into the delivery area of L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was overheard saying, “She’s going to start pushing soon.”

Bro Benji is also there. She entered the hospital through a secret entrance late Thursday, a source tells Us.

[From Us Weekly]

Us is also reporting that Nicole’s mom Brenda Harvey, dad Lionel Richie, and half-sister, Sophia have arrived at the hospital, and were escorted by security officers. They did erroneously refered to Brenda as Lionel’s wife- the pair divorced in 1993. But I’m going to assume the rest of the report is accurate, and they’re just so excited over at Us Weekly that they can’t focus. I’m really hoping for a birth-off between Christina and Nicole, a la Katie Holmes and Brooke Shields.

UPDATE BY JAYBIRD: Nicole and Joel’s rep at Handprint Entertainment announced that Nicole has given birth to a baby girl and has already left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with the newborn, a mere hours after arriving. They named their daughter Harlow Winter Kate Madden. She weighed 6 lbs., 7 oz.

“The beautiful healthy baby girl left the hospital with her ecstatic parents,” says the rep, who confirmed the birth to PEOPLE exclusively.

[From People]

Congratulations to Nicole, Joel, and their families!

Several sources, including the always reputable Sun (and several more reputable mags) are reporting that twin-bearing Jennifer Lopez will birth her babies the good ‘ol fashioned Scientology way – it silence. Apparently nothing frightens newborns like the sound of a doctor yelling “Push! Push!” or a mother screaming that she’s going to cut her husband’s penis off for doing this to her. That was, of course, until they realized that the next thing J Lo’s newborns would see will be Marc Anthony’s face. In terms of trauma, you can’t get much worse than that. So I’m guessing the whole silent birth thing is kind of a waste of time. If you really want to give your babies a more peaceful entrance into this crazy worth, I think you might want to consider having Skeletor wait in the lobby. Just a thought.

Jennifer Lopez is following in the footsteps of Katie Holmes by giving birth naturally, quiet, and free from painkillers. Katie was forced to keep quiet during the birth of Suri – her first child with Scientology-fanatic husband Tom Cruise.

J-Lo and husband Marc Anthony are also keen followers of the religion, where it is believed that loud hospital environments, and doctor’s shouts of ‘push push’ can have damaging effects on a newborn later in life.

A pal of the 38-year-old told a US mag: “Although she knows it will be hard not to scream, she understands why it will be good for the baby to have peace and quiet.”

[From the Sun]

Good luck, little babies Lopez-Anthony. Your mom is a crazy, multi-tasking diva, and your father looks like a four-day-old corpse. Something tells me that despite the money and the fame, this world won’t be too kind to the two of you. But psychologically, you’ll be okay; because your mom didn’t scream when she was pushing what I can only assume will be your incredibly angular heads from her body. So while you may inherit your parents’ undeserved sense of accomplishment, self-righteousness and a confusingly emaciated face, psychologically, you’re guaranteed to be completely intact.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s J Lo and Skeletor at the 2007 Movie Rocks awards on December 2nd. Images thanks to PR Photos.