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stretch marks! The fact I hadn‘t gotten them the first time didn‘t mean I was in the clear.
    The web was telling me that there was nothing I could do to ward off permanent stretch marks. I had to just wait and see. I was feeling more relaxed about my pregnant body, but that didn‘t mean I was ready to adopt a wait-and-see attitude when it came to having permanent red lines wiggling along my hips. So I made an executive/superstitious decision that there had to be a reason for the belly creams. They couldn‘t just exist because someone was capitalizing on the vanity of pregnant women, could they? Oh, what the hell—I decided to use them anyway.
    I lined up six different jars of belly cream on my bathroom shelf. Each one made different claims and had different compelling ingredients: shea butter, lavender, avocado, grapefruit seed extracts, marshmallow root. Gotu Kola extract, Vegolatum, TriLASTIN. Every night I‘d dip into each one of them, one after the other, and ritualistically rub the cream into my belly. I must have smelled like a New Age salad bar. But I couldn‘t give up a single cream, because what if there was only one that really did work? There was no way of knowing which one it might be, and I wasn‘t taking any chances. Yes, I told Dean, women are full of contradictions. Being seen with triple chins on national television: no problem. Permanent stretch marks: unacceptable.
    Sometimes Dean would try to help with the elaborate belly cream ritual. He‘d do a nice, calming application, taking his time, dipping into each jar, but he never quite got it right. He‘d take too long or apply too thin a layer. I‘d say, ―That was great, thanks, and then as soon as he walked out of the bathroom, I‘d dip, dip, dip, and slather it on. Now, it happens that I didn‘t end up with any stretch marks, after either pregnancy, but I doubt it had anything to do with the belly creams. Nonetheless, I am pleased to report that I had the softest belly ever. Those belly creams—we should slather them all over our entire bodies every day. My pregnant belly was like butter. (I vowed to maintain it, but of course once the baby was born I never slathered again.) I felt so much more comfortable being pregnant the second time around that I was willing to take pictures—in my bikini. I agreed to do a poolside pregnant-in-bikini photo shoot that appeared in Life & Style magazine. After that photo shoot was published, magazines kept asking me why I did it. ―What made you decide to pose in your bikini? or ―Did you struggle over that bikini photo shoot? I heard those questions time after time.
    I started to notice that it was only the female interviewers who asked about the bikini photos. The male interviewers never asked about them or about my weight. For whatever reason, the women were much more interested in the ―body story.
    The truth is that I didn‘t think twice about it at the time. I love the way women look when they‘re pregnant. I thought I looked good. I especially loved my boobs. Pregnant boobs are the best, although I couldn‘t help wishing I had them with a flat belly. The point is, I felt great and I was happy. Why shouldn‘t I want pictures taken?
    One person was particularly vocal about the pregnant bikini shots. It was—to my surprise—the stand-up comedienne and late-night host Chelsea Handler. I met Chelsea when I was working on my show So NoTORIous . My writers said they knew the perfect person to play my best friend, Janey, so I went to see her stand-up act. I thought she was hysterical. She came in to read for Janey, and we liked her. I supported her when we brought her to the network, but it didn‘t work out. Still, I thought she was totally cool, and I thought of us as friends. Not call-each-other-on-the-phone friends, but, you know, people who had met a few times and felt friendly toward each other. In other words, ―best friends, in Hollywood lingo.
    When I heard Chelsea had her own show, I was