Greater Expectation

"Pregnancy is not the most gorgeous thing ever. Every time you do anything your ankles swell. It's so 'X-Files.' "

Allison Taylor is the face and belly of the pampered pregnant. She's had at least four prenatal massages, plus manicures, pedicures and a babymoon to the Dominican Republic, where she spent a week sipping virgin cocktails and taking water aerobics. Today the 35-year-old is off to Midtown Manhattan for a full day of grooming at Edamame, including a swelling-reduction thing for the ankles. It's a gift from her husband, Gordon, who buys financial data for Bear Stearns.

The couple is working with a jeweler to design a "push present," a ring Gordon will give to Taylor after the birth of their child in June.

"The one thing I'm really splurging on is a baby nurse," Taylor says -- one who will stay with them in their four-story Upper East Side apartment for 10 days, $250 a day.

She has no idea where this pregnant princess persona came from. Pre-conception, she was not this kind of girl. She was a DIY kind of girl, one her friends referred to as a Martha Stewart/Bob Vila hybrid. She redid bathrooms. She planted 2,000 flower bulbs at her Connecticut weekend home. She launched her own housewares company a few months before learning she was pregnant.

But then came the plus sign on the pregnancy test. And then came the luxury. "If I ran the New York City Marathon, I'd get a massage for sure," she reasons. "And pregnancy is really a stretched-out marathon." A spa treatment or babymoon "is like stopping at the water table on the way." A necessity.

Besides, when you are shaped like a whale, anything that makes you feel better about yourself, you want to do, says Despina Yphantides. Late in her pregnancy, the San Diego mom decided to enroll in Fresh Mommy, a personal chef service for expectant and new mothers. "Oh, my gosh, it was so good," she says. "They had a potato-chip-crusted chicken dish that was amazing, and this chocolate sauce tamale for dessert . . . " The meals were prepared with extra omega-3 oils and proteins, recommended by doctors for moms and moms-to-be.

It's enough to make a woman want to be pregnant forever.

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The common response to why this all started -- and when exactly pregnancy became a luxurious experience -- is age and money.

Between 1990 and 2006, the birthrate for women 40 to 44 increased 65 percent, and doubled for women 45 to 49, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. As women have babies later, the pregnancy-as-movie scenario starts to look more like "Baby Mama" than "Juno," with more fertility treatments and high-powered moms who may have waited too long.

When those women do conceive, it is cause for planning and celebration and rapid disposal of disposable income. Consulting plans at the Baby Planners begin at $500. Delivered meals from Fresh Mommy are $65 a day. Spa treatments for the pregnant are upward of $100 apiece.