The twins have reportedly been named George Samuel and Everett Joseph after their great-grandfathers. Wright released a short statement to People, saying that she and her wife are grateful for their medical care and “the love and support of family and friends.”

Wright’s pregnancy had been announced back in January, when it was revealed the singer was expecting twins. At the time, the due date for the twins’ birth was reported to be sometime in the summer. Though much speculation has surrounded the issue, Wright and her wife have declined to give details on how Wright conceived.

Wright found success in the 90s with hits songs such as “Shut Up and Drive” and “Single White Female.” She came out as a lesbian in 2010, making her the first major country music star to do so. She then married Lauren Blitzer (now Lauren Blitzer-Wright) the following year in a ceremony in Connecticut. Blitzer-Wright is a music executive and an LGBT activist.

If true, the child would be the second for Beyoncé and her husband, rap producer Jay-Z. The couple already have one daughter, named Blue Ivy. Before their daughter was born, Beyoncé also suffered a miscarriage, about which she wrote a sad song.

As rumors of the pregnancy heated up early this week, an unnamed source denied the claims, stating that it wouldn’t make sense for Beyoncé at this time. The singer is currently on the European half of her world tour, titled “The Mrs. Carter Show.” The show continues in North America throughout June and July.

On Tuesday Beyoncé cancelled a scheduled show in Antwerp, Belgium. At the time, reports held that the show was cancelled due to Beyoncé’s “dehydration and exhaustion.” The cancellation further fueled rumors that the singer might be pregnant and possibly experiencing morning sickness.

Beyoncé has since issued an apology for the missed concert:

Beyoncé2 days ago

To my dearest fans in Antwerp… http://www.beyonce.com/news/ill-see-you-soon

Powered by socialditto  1,000+ likes ·  900 comments

In a sign of the times, Beutler announced that she is expecting on her Facebook page. She stated that she and her husband are “blessed” and “excited” to be able to give their parents grandchildren.

The Facebook note, in full:

A few years ago when I was newly married and recently elected to Congress, I remember fielding some speculation as to whether or not I was “expecting.” Well… my husband Dan and I are thrilled to announce that this fall, there will be yet another person in Southwest Washington who will – for their entire adult life – get to explain “No, no, it’s pronounced Butler.” That’s right – we’re expecting a baby!

Not only are we blessed to begin building our family, we’re also pretty excited to be giving Dan’s parents, Paul and Patti Beutler of Salem, their first grandchild and to be giving my parents, Armando and Candice Herrera of Camas, a grandchild to visit only a few miles away. I am thankful for the close proximity to both sets of grandparents because like any new parents, I’m sure we’ll need the help!

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and encouragement.

Jaime and Daniel

Beutler isn’t the first congresswoman to be pregnant, though the event is rare. Eight other women have become pregnant during their terms in office. Most recently, another Washington congresswoman, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, gave birth to a daughter in December 2010, making her the first congresswoman to give birth twice in office. Her first time giving birth in office was in April 2007. Similar to Beutler, Rodgers also announced her pregnancy through her Facebook page.

ORIGNAL ARTICLE: A former T-Mobile employee is speaking out about her terrible last few months working at a call center in Nashville, Tennessee. According to Kristi Rifkin, her ordeal started when she became pregnant with her second child and her pregnancy forced her to take a few extra breaks.

As Rifkin tells it in a blog post on MomsRising.org called Why I Believe in Paid Sick Leave, everything was going fine at her job until she got pregnant.

“It was a very, very rough pregnancy. I was taking medication to keep me from going into labor. I was going to the doctor twice a week, seeing both a regular obstetrician and a high-risk obstetrician. I had to drink a lot of water and go to the bathroom pretty frequently, which is what normal pregnant women do,” she says.

But her supervisor quickly warned her that frequent trips to the bathroom may cause her productivity to drop, which could result in her termination.

“Being on the phone was my job, so if I wasn’t, I risked being written up and possibly fired. Essentially the message was, ‘You can go, but understand that if you don’t meet that metric at the end of the day, week and month, we have the opportunity to fill your seat.’ They didn’t tell me that I couldn’t use the toilet. But the reality was that this is a metric on how your job is measured and if you don’t meet it, then you do not have your job.”

Eventually, her supervisor told her that if she really had a medical necessity to use the bathroom so often, she should get a doctor’s note. Of course, she and her doctor thought it was ludicrous, but she complied.

After a sit-down with H.R., it was decided that Rifkin could use the bathroom as much as she wants, but T-Mobile wasn’t going to pay for it. That meant that she had to clock out and back in for every bathroom break.

“At the same time, I was under so much pressure to keep my sales up. I would sprint – as much as a heavily pregnant woman can — between my desk and the bathroom to make sure I squeezed every second I could out of my work day. Everything I did was scrutinized. I felt picked on. Someone was always watching over my shoulder, monitoring my performance,” says Rifkin.

In the end, she says she wound up using vacation time just to go pee.

Eventually, her doctor ordered full medical leave. The Family Medical Leave Act requires that employers provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave and job security for eligible employees – so Rifkin’s job was there when she got back after 7 weeks.

But not for long. According to ABC News, she was soon fired over what amounted to a small clerical error; apparently she “failed to remove an extra-charge feature from a customer’s account, the commission for which was 12 cents.”

“Moms shouldn’t have to choose between their jobs and the health of their families. But too often, companies that are fixated on their bottom lines force women to make this choice. I know. It happened to me,” says Rifkin.

T-Mobile has made a statement. Although they won’t discuss specific employees, a spokesman said this:

“T-Mobile employees enjoy generous benefits including paid-time-off and short and long-term disability coverage. The company has leave of absence policies in line with regulatory requirements.”

UPDATE: I’ve received a lengthy and detailed comment from T-Mobile U.S. Chief People Officer Larry Myers:

Sensational headlines are hard to ignore. Here are some facts you should know:

• Of course we make reasonable accommodations for all of our employees when they need time away from servicing our customers’ needs – and we did that three years ago in 2010 for this employee.
• Our industry-standard policies have been in place since 2008 and are understood by all of our call center employees.
• Beyond the breaks that are built into every shift for all of our call center employees, we have additional flexibility to give employees the time they need – especially when there is a medical need.
• After all reasonable accommodations have been exhausted, employees have a choice – they can take additional, unpaid breaks, or they can choose to apply their paid time off benefit. These decisions do not result in adverse performance evaluations.
• When a medical situation is involved and there is even more need for time away from the job, we work closely with our employees to consider potential Leave of Absence (LOA), then consider Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) time off.
• For this particular former employee, all of these things were discussed and utilized.
• T-Mobile is a values-based organization that has 5 times in a row been awarded as one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies.” And our employees continue to tell us that they enjoy working at T-Mobile. In a recent anonymous third party employee satisfaction survey, 78% of T-Mobile’s employees said they are satisfied with their job and 83% said they are proud to work at the company, placing T-Mobile on par with the top 25% of all companies surveyed in the United States.

Please consider the facts, and judge for yourself.

Larry Myers, Chief People Officer
T-Mobile US, Inc.

To debate that here would be futile, so we’ll let AsapSCIENCE take over. They explain how both things can hurt like hell, citing nociceptors, nerve attachments, and more.

But in the end, pain is subjective. As a man, I’ll never experience the pain of childbirth. And as a woman, you’ll never know the agony of a swift kick in the balls. See what I did there? Because I have felt one of those pains, I’m biased. I said “agony” instead of simply saying “pain.”

I fear this question will never receive a proper answer. Both hurt. A lot. And even as a man, I can say that I’d rather get kicked in the balls 10 times, by a horse, than have to go through childbirth. Lord almighty.

Either way, it’s a fun watch.

[AsapSCIENCE]

Since the announcements, celebrity gawkers in the U.S. have kept a close eye on both women’s “baby bump.” Now, another celebrity will be added to the “baby bump” watch list.

TMZ is reporting that actress Halle Berry is pregnant with her second child. The publication cites “sources connected with the actress” as stating Berry is around three months pregnant with a boy. The father is reportedly Berry’s fiance, actor Oliver Martinez.

Berry and Martinez became engaged in 2012. The 46-year-old Berry has been married twice before, to Major League Baseball player David Justice and R&B singer Eric Benét. She has one daughter, named Nahla, with Canadian model Gabriel Aubry.

Berry is currently set to reprise her role as Storm in the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past.

(Image courtesy Tom Sorensen/Wikimedia Commons)

This week, the scope of the due date has been narrowed even further.

According to an E! News report, Middleton spoke with the press in Glasgow, telling them that “mid-July” is when the baby is expected. “It’s around mid-July, but apparently babies have their own agenda,” the Duchess is quoted as saying.

The Duke and Duchess were in Glasgow this week as part of a two-day tour of Scotland. The couple met with Prince Charles today at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Scotland, where they were scheduled to participate in the opening of a new Outdoor Center.

US Weekly reported that that Kardashian had the “minor” scare on Tuesday, March 5, after returning home from Paris.

Kardashian’s sister, Khloe Kardashian Odom, posted an update on Kim’s condidtion to her blog today. She assures all of the Kardashians’ fans that both Kim and hare baby are “doing fine” and are now “taking it easy.” From the blog post:

A lot of you have expressed concern in the recent hours about Kim, and I just wanted to let you all know that mommy and baby are doing fine and just taking it easy right now. Thank you so much to all of our wonderful fans and loved ones for your concern and support. We love you!

Kim Kardashian announced her pregnancy back in December 2012, just before New Year’s Day. She has stated that the baby’s father is R&B singer Kanye West. Kim and her legal husband, Kris Humphries, are currently in the midst of a contentious divorce, with Humphries trying to have the marriage recognized as a publicity stunt.

IVF has been used since 1978 to help infertile couples conceive. Since that time, approximately five million people have been born using IVF.

The study, published this week in the British Medical Journal, looked at 23,498 women undergoing an IVF pregnancy and compared them to 116,960 women undergoing a normal pregnancy. Researchers found that 4.2 out of every 1,000 women in IVF pregnancies were diagnosed with blood clots, while only 2.5 in every 1,000 of the other women were. Though the risks were greater in the first trimester of pregnancy, there was no difference in risk between the groups of women either before pregnancy or during the year after pregnancy.

The researchers also found that the risks of PE were also higher for women in IVF pregnancies throughout their entire pregnancy. Though the overall risk for PE is low, it is the leading cause of maternal death and researchers stated that it is hard to diagnose.

The results of the study were controlled for a number of factors, including age, year of delivery, body mass index, smoking, birth country, and education. Researchers stated that the increased risks found in the study should help doctors focus on identifying women who are at greater risk.

According to the study, women now make up 20% of new military recruits, 15% of active-duty military personnel, and 17% of reserve and National Guard forces. A 2005 U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) survey showed that 16.29% of military women 20 years old or younger reported an unintended pregnancy that year, while the general U.S. population’s rate was 7.1% for the same age group.

“Because of its potentially high burden for military women as well as the impact on military operations, prevention of unintended pregnancy is one reproductive health issue of particular importance,” said Dr. Vinita Goyal, lead author of the study and assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Women and Infants Hospital. “For the women, who face barriers to early prenatal care and abortion services in the military, unwanted pregnancy restricts their career achievement potential and limits their earning capacity.

“Health care providers within the community, as well as those in the DOD and Veteran’s Administration (VA), need to be aware of the reproductive health needs of this population.”

Goyal cited several factors that may play into the high unintended pregnancy rate for women in the military, stating that they are predominantly young, unmarried racial minorities of lower education achievement and lower socioeconomic status. The lower rate of contraceptive use was also a major factor.

“(Research shows that) 50 to 62% of servicewomen presenting with an unintended pregnancy were not using contraception when they conceived,” said Goyal. “Similar surveys of active-duty personnel of reproductive age demonstrate that although 70 to 85% were sexually active, nearly 40% used no contraception.”

Goyal stated that a possible cause for the low contraceptive use includes a lack of confidence in contraceptive knowledge of overseas military medical personnel. She also cited the Uniform Military Code of Justice’s prohibition on adultery, for which contraceptives can be viewed as incriminating evidence.

The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, included an overview of the reproductive health care available to U.S. women in the military, both domestically and abroad.