Gibney's reflecting real life
TV's hottest mum will find fiction is reflecting reality as
she struggles with the knowledge she is pregnant in Packed to the
Rafters.
Character Julie Rafter is 44 -- like Rebecca Gibney, the
actor who plays her -- and she must decide with husband Dave (Erik
Thomson) whether to keep the baby or abort the pregnancy.
It is a situation Gibney, who moved to Tasmania six years ago, knows well -- having had son Zach nearly five years ago.
Asked
how she and production designer-husband Richard Bell handled her own
pregnancy, Gibney said: "I knew there were risks and I talked about
them with people. "I refused to read books on what could go wrong. I just wanted to think positive." Gibney
lives in the Tamar Valley and has been a vocal opponent of plans by
timber company Gunns to build a pulp mill in the area. Australia's median age for new mothers is almost 31, up from 27 in 1985. A
25-year-old woman has a one-in-1400 chance of having a baby with Down
syndrome and a one-in-500 chance of having a baby with a chromosomal
abnormality. The risk for both defects rises to one in 60 for 40-year-old women. "Since then [giving birth] we have had our struggles with raising a child," Gibney said. "We also discussed if I fell pregnant in real life again how that would affect me at 44. "We contemplated it, but I feel I might have missed the boat a bit." http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/03/23/
62831_entertainment.html
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