Is Celine Dion a houseplant?

Call me sensitive, but the headline caught my eye. There, on the list of stories on my personalized Yahoo! page. "Celine Dion Fertilized."

What is she, a farm?

Bad enough to have your difficulty conceiving made fodder for tabloids. Bad enough to have your every infertility-clinic visit documented. But to have your efforts to have a child described in terms that make people think of cow manure--is this really necessary? Are there no limits to the news media's insensitivity?

Wait, don't answer that.

Now mind you, I'm no great fan of Celine Dion. I'd almost rather have my 10-year-old listen to hardcore rap than play "My Heart Will Go On" one more time. I find her vocal stylings to be so over the top as to make my fillings ache.

And to be even more honest, I'm no great fan of infertility treatments. We stopped fairly early in the process and went for adoption, with no regrets. I suppose I respect every woman's right to do painful and bothersome things to her body in the pursuit of parenthood, but I'd say that when news organizations refer to you as though you were the Back 40, or perhaps a limp houseplant, it might be time to call Tom and Nicole's adoption attorney and get yourself a baby who's already been fertilized, so to speak. Or better still, an older child with special needs who could benefit from the kind of help that Titanic-size record sales could provide.

But that's just me. If Celine and her husband want to harvest a crop they planted themselves, far be it from me to judge. In fact, I wish them all the best in their efforts. I wish them more thoughtful headlines. I wish them many, many babies. And most of all, I wish that Celine's sabbatical would go on and on and on. Gotta save that voice for yelling at the kids.