Welcome to Day 5 of Jolie WombWatch: We join you live as the world's downtrodden and miracle-needy—still frustrated over the lack of any measurable improvement since the last Chosen One graced our midst—sit glued to their ham radios, anxiously awaiting any verifiable updates on the official birth-status of Jolie-Pitt Chosen Children Numbers Two through Three. (The latest theory is that ET was right all along, and that the couple is covering up the delivery in order to score an exclusive payday with another publication. Conspiracy! Building 7! Runner 6074! Hill: Ego Only!) Meanwhile, Baby Truth is wheezing its tiny lungs out behind a full-on media-assault smokescreen. Most notably, Jolie graces the cover of the current Vanity Fair, where she describes all the dilletanteish qualities in Pitt that inspired her to break up his marriage:

We know we threw your worlds for a loop this morning when we relayed ET's joyous news that noted orphan-collecting pregnancy-dabbler Angelina Jolie had delivered healthy twin girls, then cruelly swiped back the statement like a rattle from an abandoned French toddler. We've been patiently awaiting ET Online's retraction, but instead have gotten nothing but the above meltdown message for the past couple hours. Could their faulty reporting have caused a massive, Paramount Tabloid Syndicate grid failure? Or are they just closing shop until the intern instructed to, "Get me a fucking picture of those twins, I don't care if you have to set up a step-ladder and climb into Angelina's birthing canal!" returns with the smoking goods in hand? Developing. [ET Online]

No sooner had we endured the traffic overload at the Petit Trésor website long enough to order a pair of custom-bedazzled Isla and Amelie onesies for the proud parents, came shocking news over the Biological MaternityWatch transom suggesting the Chosen Twins were in fact still resting comfortably inside their mother. People.com debunks:

Big news! The first Morse code beeps heralding the arrival of two more biologically achieved additions to the Jolie-Pitt clan have landed in our Google Telegraph inbox. The joyous development comes almost two years to the day that the couple's first amorphous Chosen Blob was ushered into this world by a coterie of Namibian midwives. By contrast, genetically flawless Jolie-Pitt White Children Numbers 2 through 3 (names pending) were delivered in France, with all the First-World-medical-facility pampering that implies. More details as they come, including the all-important How Jennifer is Handling the News report, and whether or not it involves any huffily dispatched text messages demanding to know, "So r u in or out?? My body is a ticking biologicl wonderlnd!!"

We have good news. Strike that—we have unbelievably good news. What's the difference? Unbelievably good news is good news you once thought impossible—like a live-feed from Mars, or Robert Downey Jr. dominating the summer box office. Or Clay Aiken becoming a dad. TMZ reports:

With his dreams of an eye-patched, SS-uniformed Oscar statuette slipping through his Hitler-hunting fingers, and his billion-year war bride having successfully sanded through her reinforced-leather ankle restraints and hightailed it to the Great White Way, Tom Cruise has responded to the steady unraveling of his meticulously constructed, intergalactic Camelot in the only logical fashion: by attempting to reclaim his own image. Beyond the "Take Back The Tom" campus marches planned around the country (ours meets at the Celebrity Center quad at 10), the NY Daily News is reporting that reps for the UA minimogul have fired off a Scary Hollywood Lawyer letter to millionaire-baby-outfitter Petit Trésor. Claiming they told Life & Style that the couple bought Suri $400,000's worth of high-thread-count swaddling cloths and ruby-encrusted platinum rattles (or enough to feed, heal, and clothe every child in Africa until 2069), the letter asserted that the sum was "simply false," "violates our clients' rights of privacy," and that the couple would therefore "request that you no longer use our clients as part of your public relations and marketing efforts."

The latest celebrity said to be jumping on the nudie pregnant pictures bandwagon is Nicole Kidman, who was seen yesterday attending a "top secret" modeling session for a potential cover shoot with Frenchy photographer extraordinaire Patrick Demarchelier. While he's no Annie Leibovitz, and it's unknown which magazine this shoot was for, Demarchelier is a monthly contributor for Allure, Vogue, and Demi Moore's old knocked-up-while-nude stomping grounds, Vanity Fair. So whether or not Nicole is looking to appear on an upcoming cover of VF as Demi's successor is still unknown, but we took a look back at some classic big-bellied celebrity appearances in the past to see some glossy examples of what Kidman will be competing with in the Nude And Pregnant Hall of Fame:

As the country plods along to what seems like inevitable recession, not all trends suggest our economy is necessarily swirling clockwise down the shitter. Take the celebrity-baby-photo market, a financial spit-up bubble seemingly incapable of bursting. Leading the way is People magazine, who apparently have a budget surplus in the trillions to lavish on Hollywood's most recognizable faces and the powerblobs they spawn. They rocked the status quo back in 2006 by shelling out $4.1 million for a glimpse of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, and more recently paid $6 million to Jennifer Lopez for a stunning photoset in which her adorable newborns were woven into a plexus of mother's hair extensions, like nested baby sparrows awaiting their next grub feeding.

It's tough out there for a celebrity mom with a baby cover exclusive with People. From Nicole Richie's non-groundbreaking Harlow cover to Christina Aguilera's boobalicious Max debut, no glossy cover with a star baby splashed across it will ever compare to that of The Chosen One. Well, unless The Chosen Two follow in their goddess-like older sister's footsteps. And despite the fact that Jennifer Lopez received the heftiest payday on record to introduce twins Max and Emme to the masses, MSNBC reports that Jenny From The Block went into vintage diva mode both prior to the shoot and throughout the painful session:

All you needed to do was take one look at Angelina Jolie's SAG Awards gown, a billowy sail of silk charmeuse that could have easily smuggled a schoolhouseful of multicultural toddlers, to wonder if the actress wasn't perhaps camouflaging something beneath all of that fabric. The world, of course, was not caught entirely off guard: News of a possibly Jolie-Pitt twins pregnancy inched its way up the tabloid totem last week, up from the paparazzi blogosphere, into the pages of supermarket literature, and now arriving in the semi-legitimate pages of Us Weekly:

Reluctant as we are to fall headlong into the gurgling, powder-scented embrace of any celebrity baby news delivered to us Xclusively by the suspicious-item blogging arm of international paparazzi outfit X17, their report that globe-traipsing orphanologist Angelina Jolie is heavy with not one but two biological offspring (Brad Pitt's two-headed fish can swim!) seemed to us almost too exciting a possibly-true story not to pass along to our readers:

Whoooop! Whoooop! All hands on tabloid deck, the sirens are sounding, we have confirmation! Nicole Kidman and New Zealandish country singer husband Keith Urban have finally addressed what many in the baby-bump-scrutinizing trade have long suspected—that contrary to what her rep Linda McBigfatliarface said just a few weeks ago, Kidman is indeed pregnant! Yay! [People, Extra, OK!, Morning Herald, E Online, UsMagazine.com]

Positively glowing and sporting a matching set of milk-engorged bosoms, Elisabeth Hasselbeck made her much-hooplah'd return to The View today with new baby Taylor Thomas in tow, the adorable newborn hoisting a tiny I Heart Huckabee placard that owed a major debt to the infant campaigning techniques trailblazed by The Incredible Picketing Baby. While a cautious Joy Behar noted that perhaps the hot lights, a studio audience, and the Viewmaster piping instruction into the baby's earpiece to "coo a segue into Hot Topics" might have all been a little overwhelming for a seven-week-old, a positively gushy Sherri Shepherd couldn't get enough of the new addition to their lineup, insisting Elisabeth fill her in on every last detail about the birth, including the name of her stork delivery service.

Because there's literally minutes left to the end of the year, and we'd like to leave you all with nice things, here's a photo of proud new dads Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke. Mark, she has your eyes, and Ethan, she has your ears. We couldn't be happier for you. [WOW Report]

Wonderful news everyone! In a Super! Duper! People! Alba! Shotgun! Wedding! Exclusive!, the subject of many a pubescent male self-love fantasy has been proposed to by Cash Warren, the man responsible for the expanding baby-bump soon to be defiantly bared on the cover of a fashion glossy. Finally, with Alba officially off the market, casting agents and directors will be able to consider her for the kinds of meaty roles she's long craved, only to see herself passed over for dowdier, less available actresses. [People]

That was quick! Aniston's flack is quashing the baby banter. "She is not pregnant," says she. Spies also tell the tab that Jen has been spotted drinking martinis and getting her hair dyed, both no-gos for the gravid. Another update since the last post: Brad and Angelina had ten more kids and a water horse. [Us Weekly]

The One Where Jennifer Aniston Might Be Pregnant is on the cover of the National Enquirer this week: Jen, whom you might remember as having had a little headline-hogging romance with a certain hunky actor (Tate Donovan) a few years back, has, in the past, been speculated to have put a baby on the backburner (not literally) so as to pursue a film career. Box office returns suggest that she might now try reproducing instead. [Enquirer]

When news first broke that Jamie Lynn Spears, the up-and-coming, 16-year-old sister to down-and-going, 26-year-old Britney Spears, had made up her mind and was keeping her baby, those looking for someone to blame instantly turned to Lynne Spears—a big-league stage mother seemingly incapable of keeping her litter in check. Now, the publisher of what was widely reported to have been a guide to good parenting authored by Lynne leaps to her defense, claiming the book was in fact a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of breeding children for fame—a subject on which Lynne is arguably the world's foremost expert:

As America struggles to cope with the reality of the one doodle that can't be undid, Homeskillet, we gather the latest updates in the Jamie Lynn Spears Teen Pregnancy Shocker! Disaster! Nightmare!:
· What's a trailerpark nativity story without an Uncle Odus? According to the Baptist preacher kin of It Babydaddy Casey Aldridge, the family is "shocked and yet we aren't." Which is Baptist preacherspeak for, "Jamie Lynn is a nice girl. For a Spears." [TMZ]
· Well, here's your problem right here, see: Someone left the key lying around to Jamie Lynn's heart-shaped chastity lock. [jamielynnspears.com]
· The good news: From what everyone is saying, Aldridge is a fine young man with his feet on the ground (and his hands in the Nickelodeon splat-branded cookie jar). [People]
· A "Spears family insider" claims Jamie Lynn and Casey have already broken up, and that she doesn't even want him to be in the delivery room. [Life & Style]

Hot on the heels of their merciless takedown of Tinseltown's most overpaid, the intrepid list-makers at Forbes are turning to the tots as they ask: Who's really the most influential drooling, mute, self-soiling celebrity baby? Lest you think this is some sort of metaphor, let us present—Hollywood's Most Influential Infants. You might think that ranking babies is too insane to be quantifiable, but rest assured that Forbes used an infallible algorithm in their computations: