My annual Britney Spears mention

Slate, Aug. 19, 2005

In Touch reports that Spears "will deliver her baby in a special pool filled with 1,000 one-liter bottles of specially blessed Kabbalah water—costing a whopping $3,800!" And according to Us Weekly, the pop star may name her baby boy Preston, "an English moniker that means 'dweller at the church.' " Spears' husband, perennially unemployed former backup dancer Kevin Federline, is also getting spiritual: He was spotted by Star clutching a copy of Deepak Chopra's The Book of Secrets. The caption? "Kevin: deeper."

imdb, September 15, 2005

Britney Spears' dreams of becoming a mother have finally been realized - the pop superstar gave birth to a baby boy yesterday afternoon. According to American magazine Us Weekly, the 23-year-old singer welcomed her first offspring into the world shortly before 1pm on Wednesday at California's Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center. Spears and her dancer husband Kevin Federline, 27, arrived at the hospital with a police escort shortly before 6 am and medical staff whisked the star into a birthing suite, reports the publication. According to hospital sources, Spears, who reportedly started experiencing early labor contractions on Friday, was wheeled into a delivery room at about 12.15 pm and within minutes she had delivered via Caesarian section with Federline by her side. While the newlyweds - who will celebrate their first-year wedding anniversary on Sunday - have yet to announce the name of their offspring, sources say they had planned to call the child Preston Michael Spears Federline. The child is Federline's third - he's also the father of daughter Kori, three, and son Kaleb, one, with ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson. In a recent interview with Elle magazine, Spears made very specific predictions about the arrival of her child, saying, "I have a feeling I'm going to have an operation. I don't know why. But I hope so. I don't want to go through the pain..."

Mm-hmm. I have this vision of a tired, thin guy with a scraggly beard in a room somewhere, surrounded by heaps and piles of water bottles. He's just got done individually blessing 1000 bottles of Kabbalah water. Someone comes in and says "Never mind, Miss Spears has decided to go with a C-section." The guy just pauses for a moment, and says "Crap".