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‘Pregnant’ Husband Relates With Sugar Baby

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Given our preoccupation with killer bugs, deadly bacteria, toxic waste and even more toxic personalities, it’s no wonder we failed to notice long ago that we had been overrun by a band of tiny invaders.

It was a stealth mission and we were caught off guard. The little hairless creatures swelled our bodies, soiled our homes and rewired our emotional circuitry. But we were willing captives right from the start, putty in their chubby little hands.

Babies: They make us weak in the knees, giddy with love and unfit for adult company. And I’m talking about the effect they have on the men.

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Take KHAY DJ John Cowsill, a generally upbeat guy, who has already driven right through a state of giddiness and is on his way to full hysteria over the upcoming birth of his first child. On this particular morning, he is sitting in the radio station pretending to be pregnant.

More on this in a minute, after station identification.

There was a time when babies plumped themselves up and drooled and burbled for the greater love of mommy. Admiring fathers mostly hovered on the sidelines, dreaming daddy dreams of bicycle training and baseball coaching.

The babies weren’t content to enslave only half the population. They aimed at a new target, and the men--even the big cowboy types--went weak in the knees and goofy around the edges.

At 7 a.m., Cowsill is in the station booth with Charlye Parker, his partner on the morning drive-time show, “The Country Club,” and Cowsill’s very pregnant wife, Anne, who is due to give birth in four weeks.

Sharing the small space with the three--nearly four--of them, are a camera operator, a soundman and a producer. The video people are taping a future segment of the cable show “A Baby Story,” which follows the real-life exploits of real people having real babies. Each half-hour segment of the show, which premiered on the Learning Channel in September, includes delivery-room footage, “shot G-rated, of course,” according to producer Roberta White.

As the video operators record the event, the two women are duct-taping a pillow containing a 10-pound bag of sugar to Cowsill’s middle, to simulate a late-term pregnancy. In between bouncy, danceable top-40 country tunes about lost love and wayward trucks, the pregnant Cowsills are taking advice from Parker and the listeners, who have been invited to call in with names for the baby and new-dad tips for John.

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“John, it’s awesome changing diapers, a piece of cake,” says one enthusiastic male caller. He sounds like a shill from Yuppie Country, where sensitive males attend Lamaze classes in cowboy boots.

For the next several minutes, the large and affable Cowsill allows himself to be treated like a buffoon. He is goaded by listeners, his wife and his partner, to sit, take off his boots, lie down and generally imagine the trials and tribulations of operating a body with an

extra attachment.

One female listener, speaking in a finger-wagging tone, tells Cowsill he needs to keep the pillow on all day, then “go home, do a couple of loads of laundry, and cook dinner for your wife.”

By 9, Cowsill actually pops a sweat from the exertion and insists he has seen the error of his ways. He swears he’ll never again make fun of his pregnant wife or take for granted what she is going through.

As though he ever did.

“John started watching ‘A Baby Story’ when it first came on the air in September,” said Anne, after the show ended and the video crew had left for its San Fernando Valley office. “He would watch both shows--from 11 till noon--and cry. When I’d call from work he would tell me about each one. At one point he told my mom, who sent an e-mail to the show.”

The producer contacted the couple and told them they had been selected.

“I had nothing to do with this,” said Anne. “It was my husband and my mother.”

Anne, who has been married to John for 18 months, said she was indifferent to the notion of having children until she met him.

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“I didn’t want babies,” she said. “Then I met John and started thinking about how much I wanted to have his baby.”

But having a baby is one thing; having it recorded for posterity and cable TV is quite another.

“Anne doesn’t really like being in the spotlight,” John said.

“There’s only room for one star in this family,” said Anne, looking over at her husband.

“And,” said John, “that’s the baby.”

*

Wendy Miller is a Times staff writer. She can be reached at wendy.miller@aol.com.

* OUT & ABOUT It’s a good time to catch the whale migration, or a couple of theatrical productions. B7

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