‘Junior’ Has Real Omentum

Picture the epitome of glowing expectant motherhood and you might think of the Madonna and child through the ages, or even Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair. You probably wouldn’t think of a cigar-chomping Arnold Schwarzenegger in the throes of pregnancy.

But that’s exactly what Ivan Reitman’s “Junior,” which co-stars Danny DeVito and opens Nov. 23, will present onscreen.

A few TV shows--and the tacky Joan Rivers/Billy Crystal 1978 film “Rabbit Test”--have dabbled with the notion of male pregnancy. But it took a very ill and very bored Chris Conrad to delve into real scientific studies on the subject, and come up with a relatively believable--at least in Hollywood terms--story idea (she shares writing credit with Kevin Wade).

Could the male psyche, for example, handle the erratic emotional landscape a woman typically suffers for nine months? What about morning sickness? The ballooning midriff? Cravings? (Not to mention the getting pregnant part.)

After suffering a divorce and illness in the late 1980s, Conrad found herself convalescing and worrying about her future. A former editor at Warner Books, former head of New York’s Film, Television and Theater Office and screenwriter, she decided she wanted to write again.

“There I was in the hospital, no husband, worrying about my income at (age) 45. So I say, ‘I better get a big idea and resurrect my career, fast,’ ” she says. She happened to spot an article about a sex therapists’ convention at which the topic under discussion was male pregnancy.

“What a comedy!” she says. “Nothing could put a man more in jeopardy than being pregnant.”

She began to research the subject, and was more than a little stunned to learn that male pregnancy is not as far-fetched a notion as one might think.

An embryo could be produced by extracting an egg from the ovary and fertilizing it with sperm in a petri dish--the technique used in in-vitro fertilization. The embryo then would be implanted into the man’s abdominal cavity against the blood-rich, fatty tissue in front of the intestines called the omentum, which would be a surrogate uterus, develop a placenta and nourish the growing life.

After nine months and a lot of help from supplemental hormones, Mr. Mom would undergo an operation similar to a Cesarean section for delivery.

Surgical experts whom Conrad consulted say that it’s all in the realm of possibility.

Dr. Carl J. Hauser, associate professor of surgery at the University of Mississippi, says, “Abdominal pregnancies are not only possible, but they’ve occurred. The problem with them is the blood supply is usually inadequate. Will we ever see them in men? Most things are possible, but I don’t think the abdomen will ever replace the uterus as the optimum place for the fetus.”

Omni magazine reported that an Auckland, New Zealand, woman, who had undergone a hysterectomy, gave birth to a five-pound baby girl in May, 1979, from an abdominal preg nancy. It also noted that in the mid-’60s, researchers transplanted the fertilized egg of a female baboon into a male’s abdomen. The embryo attached itself to the omentum and the male carried the fetus to term.

Clinical aspects aside, there’s an emotional factor. In “Junior,” Schwarzenegger’s character suffers insecurity with his mate (in this case, his research partner, DeVito), hypersensitivity, a motherly glow, a voracious appetite and a fascination with his changing body.

“Beyond that,” says Conrad, “the story is sort of similar to ‘Tootsie’ but takes it one step further. What (Schwarzenegger’s character) really learns is to be a better man by being a woman.”

But director Reitman says it was the plausibility of the idea that attracted him.

“The thing that was great about Chris’ script is that she took a very scientific approach,” he says. “A man could get pregnant now, even though it would probably kill the guy!

“I guess you could say I’m no stranger to obscure story lines. I had been thinking of doing a sequel to ‘Twins’ with Danny and Arnold but this seemed so much better,” he says. “Once I read it, I couldn’t think of anyone else who could play nine months pregnant better than Arnold.”*

* ‘JUNIOR’ MS.

What’s Michael Ovitz’s wife doing in the film? Page 31