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In Washington, Lawyer Catherine Stevens, 37, wife of the Senate majority whip, Alaska's Ted Stevens, occasionally uses convenient Secret Service agents as baby sitters for her six-month-old daughter. She once breast-fed her in a room beside a presidential banquet. Mr. Reagan signed a menu for the infant. Even board rooms contain more than the usual number of maternity business suits these days. The senior officers' dining room of a New York banking concern, where executives entertain clients at lunch, was recently over whelmed by pregnant women. Said one female executive: "They thought at first it was something in the coffee."
Dr. Robert Franklin, head of fertility at Woman's Hospital of Texas, sees an explanation in the boomlet. Says he: "It's more In to have babies. There's a big wave at 30. A lot of career women thought they wanted no babies. They're uneasy at 30. They're terribly uneasy at 35. If they don't make the decision, then it'll pass them by."
A variety of experts have compiled a statistical portrait of this 1980s Career Woman Impatiently Waiting. She is over 30, has a well-paid job, lives in an urban area and has a college education. The chances are that she will not replace her own generation—as did her mother—by having 2.2 babies. She will probably have only one child. One thing is certain. She will go at fertility, pregnancy, delivery and infant care with an aggressive elan. She will not become pregnant at the whim of the tides, but when she can clear her agenda. Says Richard Levinson, an Emory University sociologist in Atlanta: "Women in this age and economic stratum are saying, 'If I'm going to do this at my age, then I'm going to do it in style.' "
A number of U.S. companies have noted a modish increase in their profits as well. Gerber Products in Fremont, Mich., makers of baby food, pacifiers, baby bottles and other merchandise, recorded sales of $282.6 million at the end of 1972. Last year sales had swelled to $631 million. Child Craft, in Salem, Ind., a baby-furniture maker, has noted a "remarkable upsurge" in sales. One of the reasons, says David Branaman, vice president of sales, is that some couples spend up to $2,500 on clothing, furniture and equipment by the time the baby comes home from the hospital.