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Expectant mothers in New York "shop" among traditional hospital delivery rooms, "birthing suites" and house-call midwives to find the method that best suits their attitudes. While most obstetricians welcome their well-prepared new patients, some think the fertile fringe has gone too far. Says Dr. Melchior Savarese, an obstetrician at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C.: This group of women comes into my office with lists of questions. 'Am I going to have an I.V., an external monitor, an enema?' They set down guidelines. It causes minor confrontations. They're overly prepared." Says William Simon, professor of sociology at the University of Houston: "The underside of this situation is that these are interesting women. They are wondrous products of the culture of narcissism. They want the best of everything—best marriages, best careers, best children. Unfortunately, life requires that we make choices. The kind of child rearing they're going to engage in, with a great deal of child care, handing the kid back and forth, is enhancing to the father and mother, but what it means to the child I don't know." Dr. Cecil Jacobson, a Washington reproductive biologist, points out: "Lateborn children are the highest achievers in society. Parents are easier on their kids because they're not trying to make their way in a career and they're more realistic."
The new crop of mature mothers is working harder to achieve that goal. The price, however, is sometimes steep. "At work, you think of the children you've left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself: your heart is rent." A career woman named Golda Meir confessed that in 1973, and it still applies today.
Dr. Bethany Hays, 32, typifies the new style. At home in Houston, she changes the diapers of her infant son Josh. It is a kind of busman's holiday. Hays is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Baylor College of Medicine and medical director of its lactation clinic. On a typical night call at the clinic, she delivers as many as four new arrivals. She and Husband Ray, 38, a psychologist, have successfully blended hectic careers and child care by unrelenting planning. When she began her residency seven years ago, Hays was already mentally preparing for her first child. The arrangement with her superiors: in the last few months of her third year she would do pathology, a relatively cushy job sitting on a stool and peering through a microscope. It would be a good time for maternity. The plan, however, fell through: she had the baby in her fourth year. Says she: "I would not have been a good full-time doctor if I hadn't done my wife and mothering. And I know I wouldn't be a good full-time mother if not a doctor. I'd hate my children, my house and husband."
With a few careers, even planning does not help much. Says Houston Architect Leslie Davidson, 31, 4½ months along with her second child: "As far as it being chic to be pregnant, no way. Clients see the maternity dress, and they panic. They think, 'She'll be sick all the time. She'll be delivering when my job is under construction.' "