Attn: George Lucas

Dear Mr. Lucas,

Yesterday, in honor of SuperBowl LXM (or whatever it was), my husband and I watched your prequel trilogy. I have a few complaints, including how much more like a cartoon The Phantom Menace is than The Clone Wars, but I won't trouble you with those now. I'm sure you get enough letters like that.

Instead, I have a question: Have you have seen a pregnant woman or a birth? You see, I am nearly six months pregnant. Padme carried twins. At the climax of the movie she was smaller than I am now. I concede that Natalie Portman is significantly smaller than me, but I'm talking proportionate belly size. I also concede that I have some extra fat on me, but not enough that my singleton, second trimester pregnancy could look larger than a third trimester twin pregnancy. Or was she supposed to die significantly early on in the pregnancy? You never really gave any indication. The babes seemed awfully robust and healthy, though, to have been premies. In fact, as my baby only has a very slight chance of survival on the outside, I am going to say that twins have next to none.

SO WHY WAS SHE SO TINY? There were entire scenes where it looked as though no one had even bothered to strap on her dainty little belly.

Furthermore, why must you perpetuate the idea that birth is a bad thing? Showing Padme in pain both in Anakin's dreams and in actuality contributes to negative myths surrounding an occurrence that is natural and not necessarily so very awful. I am willing to forgive the pain in Anakin's dreams as it is actually related to a fairly important plot development, but there is no excuse for her to scream during what is presented as an extraction of the babies. She is not in labor. They "take" the babies to save them as she has, um, heeheeeee, lost the will to live. Was there no anesthesia a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? Do you just not understand how babies come out? Were we supposed to believe that the droids induced labor? None of these work for me.

Looking forward to your reply!

Love,
Annika

P.S. While fair representation of labor and birth is my number one personal baby-related crusade, I would also like to see some history on the Organas and their choice to adopt. Were they infertile? What are the options in the Star Wars universe? And why did Leia, an otherwise intelligent leader, believe that the nice hispanic lady was her biological mother? (Or perhaps you are way more hip than I ever dreamed, and you know that "real mother" means whatever it means, and has nothing to do with who gave birth to you.)