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Manhattan publicist Tracey Kahn, 51, is pregnant with her second child, due in February.
Read Full Column on NYPOST.com

By Andrea Peyser
September 12, 2014

A mother load of nonsense

Self-absorbed, narcissistic and cursed with more money than common sense, a New York City woman is pregnant with her second daughter. Big whoop?

Normally, this dame’s decision to procreate with the aid of the most expensive reproductive technologies available would not rate a raised eyebrow. But Tracey Kahn is single, lives in a million-dollar Manhattan apartment and works 14 to 16 hours a day as a publicist.

She is also 51 years old.

“If anyone else thinks it’s strange and unnatural, they’re entitled to their opinion — but I honestly don’t give a s–t,’’ Kahn told The Post’s Jane Ridley in an interview that made me as nauseous as the preggers woman, due to deliver her baby in February, claims to be.

Then, Kahn issued a litany of boasts that might help explain why she’s remained perpetually unwed.

“I’m confident, attractive, successful in my career and own a $1 million apartment on the Upper East Side,’’ she said. “One day, I’ll likely meet Mr. Right, get married, and my kids will have a loving ­father in their lives.’’

She said “I look young for my age — friends say I pass for 10 years younger and I’ve had the occasional Botox and collagen injection.’’

Does she live on a planet in which such superficialities are ­vitally important to a mom?

The rise of in-vitro fertilization and the use of eggs sold by women hungry for cash has greatly extended the number of years their well-off sisters may reproduce. But the resultant designer babies are not related by blood to the females who carry them in their wombs. Where is the limit?

Six hundred women over age 50 brought bouncing bundles of joy into America in 2012 — a more than fourfold increase from 1997, when 144 babies were born to women who were at least quinquagenarians, according to the National Vital Statistics Reports.

A handful of new moms who, one would think, should be dealing with menopause rather than diapers — a baby’s diapers, not their own — has given birth after age 60.

Sure, many men well into their dotage have produced offspring, naturally, it is believed, with younger women. The late actor James Doohan, Scotty to fans of TV’s “Star Trek,’’ fathered his last child at age 80. Actor Anthony Quinn, who is also not still with us, had his last kid at age 81.

But how could a woman who’ll become eligible for Social Security benefits at around the time her kid graduates from middle school intentionally give birth to a so-far ­fatherless child?

Kahn, who brags that her business publicizing high-end jewelry and accessories takes in $500,000 a year before expenses, says she got pregnant accidentally the old-fashioned way, by a boyfriend in 2008 when she was 45. But she miscarried after seven weeks and her relationship with the would-be baby daddy didn’t last. She considered adoption.

Then she enrolled in an infertility program at Weill Cornell Medical Center. After five unsuccessful rounds of intra-uterine insemination, she moved to in-vitro with a donor egg and sperm. She got pregnant with the first embryo transfer.

The biological mom, like Kahn, was Jewish, petite and from a big family. She also was a fashion major at Parsons The New School of Design. The father was a “tall, dark, sporty type with long limbs, beautiful eyes and almost a perfect SAT score,’’ said Kahn.

After spending some $75,000, Kahn gave birth to Scarlett, now 2, who came into the world via Cesarean section three days after Kahn turned 49. But giving the child a sibling was trickier: Kahn was rejected by Weill Cornell for another round of IVF because she’d exceeded the maximum age to enroll in its infertility program, which was 46. So she went to Reproductive Medical Associates of New York, which treats women up to around age 55. Using the same sperm and egg donors she did the first time, she again got pregnant.

At least her daughters will be ­related to each other.

What lies in store for the soon-to-be-born child? Kahn hired a $350-a-day baby nurse during Scarlett’s first three months of life and she now employs an “amazing’’ full-time nanny to help her cope with her grueling work schedule.

“The first 25 years with the kids will be great — I’m planning lots of European vacations and they’ll go to the best private schools in Manhattan — but yes, it will get harder after that,’’ she said. Kahn plans to hire a live-in aide to care for her in old age. And then there’s that phantom guy who, she’s certain, will sweep a mature, never-married, single mom of two off her feet.

“God willing, by the time I’m in my 80s and they’re in their 30s, I’ll have raised them properly with the help of a good man whom I’ll meet and eventually marry.’’

Assuming that a man exists who is not just out for her money, I think Kahn should hurry up and nail him down. Kids who grow up without fathers, studies show, are more likely than those raised in two-parent households to be poor or become juvenile delinquents. Fatherless girls are more apt to get pregnant as teens.

Tracey Kahn may not “give a s–t’’ what others think of her. But those of us who care about the next generation do.

©2007-2025 Andrea Peyser and andreapeyser.com; No Reuse without permission.
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