Fiona McCade: Why should SJP grin and bear it if she can't?

Published on Monday 4 May 2009 19:00

WHEN Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick had their first baby, James, in 2002, she didn't ostentatiously parade her bump, they didn't auction the first photos to the highest bidder, nor did they publicly flaunt their new arrival. True to the couple's belief in keeping their home life low-profile and resolutely unstarry, the day SJP took her baby home she simply stood on the steps of the hospital, beaming with pride, and let everyone and anyone take photos.

Then she got on with being a mother – oh, and icon to millions, of course. And that, we thought, was that, until last week's revelation that the Parker-Brodericks are expecting twin girls. The only difference between the twins' birth and James's is that, according to the couple's official announcement, the girls are arriving "with the generous help of a surrogate".

SJP has always said she'd like more children, but now that she's finally getting her wish, not everyone is cheering her on. The mere mention of the word "surrogate" – the fact that this huge star won't be personally ejecting the twins into the world – has provoked a storm of criticism. I'm sure SJP is way too cool to read crazy web-postings, but if she did, she'd realise that cyber-opinion ranges from calling her hiring of a surrogate "disturbing" to equating it with "buying a pet dog". From the safety and anonymity of the internet, people who have never been within a continent of SJP are condemning her for not getting properly pregnant. They speculate it's because she's afraid it'll spoil her figure – ignoring the fact that she already did it once – or that she's too busy to take time out from her busy schedule to carry and give birth to a child. Thanks to the likes of Victoria Beckham, we're now well used to celebrities who apparently elect to have caesareans for no medical reason and are "too posh to push". So it looks like we're now saving the full force of our collective wrath for celebrities who are too posh for parturition.

True to form, the Parker-Brodericks have declined to furnish the gawping, sniping world with any more details about why they have taken the surrogacy route, but the gossipmongers all seem to agree on the same points – Sarah and Matthew had tried and failed to have another baby, and the twins are biologically theirs. So, it looks like they couldn't rather than wouldn't; at 44 and 47, they're too old to adopt – unless they follow Madonna to Malawi and look what happened there; so what's left to do? Check under every gooseberry bush?

Not only do I think SJP is doing the only sensible thing, I'd do it too. Like a shot. Even without concerns about fertility, my figure, or a jet-setting schedule, if I had the money, I'd hand over the tedious misery of pregnancy to a well-paid womb before you could say "turkey baster".

I'm not much younger than SJP and although I'd love another child, the thought of going through the whole pregnancy/birth bit again is daunting in the extreme. My personal experience was bad and although people keep trying to reassure me that it won't necessarily be so terrible the second time around, nobody can guarantee that it won't be. Last time, I was in my 30s and it took me two years to feel human again. Now I'm in my 40s, I see my choice as being between one child, or two children and a lifetime supply of Tena Lady.

Believe me, the joys of months of physical exhaustion followed by hours – sometimes days – of forcing a football-sized object out of your nether regions are overrated. SJP isn't going to care any less for the twins than she does for James because she didn't do the pushing. Pregnancy is a means to an end. If you can achieve that end without enduring all the risk and pain, then go for it. Here's a newsflash for the internet snipers – it is generally accepted that it's possible to love a child you haven't given birth to.

Sarah and Matthew don't deserve criticism, just congratulations. They've simply been forced to bake their buns in someone else's oven. Contrast this with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt who, after having one child the ordinary way, conceived their twins through IVF because they couldn't be bothered waiting for it to happen naturally. Brangelina's embryos were then implanted in Angelina.

No de facto difference from the Parker-Broderick babies, except of course that there were many, many more photo opportunities.