Come July, Nicole Kidman can stop lamenting the fact that her two adoptive kids call their stepmom "Mummy," rather than her.

Yes, she's finally copping to being pregnant, after a week of denials. (These celebs are a lot like politicians when it comes to flip-flopping. How does her publicist, Wendy Day, maintain credibility, denying a pregnancy one day and confirming it the next?)

Anyhow, congratulations to Nicole and hubby Keith Urban. Like Halle and JLo, she's had babies on the brain for a hot minute.

"I'm very excited … thank you, thank you, thank you," Kidman said outside Lucio's restaurant in Sydney's upscale Paddington today, as she basked in the doting of well-wishers.

When one of the media pack asked whether it was a boy or a girl, she added: "Too personal." The baby is said to be due in July.

According to Australia's Herald Sun, Day only just found out that her boss was knocked up. "I personally didn't know, so I'm excited today, very excited," she says. By way of explaining her insistent denials, the spin doctor went on to say this: "For years I've seen speculation and for years it's never been right, so I didn't think it was right this time. And then she's just rung this morning."

(Yeah, right. Did you attempt to get the truth from the Oscar-winning actress as the rumors swirled and you denied? Did she lie to you? I would quit on principle…)

Ms. Day said Kidman had announced her pregnancy after withdrawing from her upcoming film, the Stephen Daldry-directed post-World War II drama, The Reader, which was due to begin shooting this month. The New York Post reported Kidman, who has suffered a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy in the past, quit the film because she was "so concerned about the welfare of her unborn child".

"I understand she's had to withdraw from the film and therefore she's had to give them the reason, and therefore she's now able to confirm that she's pregnant," she says.

So Kidman was 'forced' to come clean.

Day now claims to not know how far along her boss is, nor the due date of the baby. "She just simply rang me and said, 'Wendy I always told you I would tell you first, and I'd confirm it and you could make the appropriate announcement,' " says the publicist. "So I guess that statement ends all the rumours and … I guess the poor girl will be hounded by paparazzi and all that." Kidman married Urban in 2006, after a failed marriage to actor Tom Cruise. The 10 year union saw the couple adopting daughter Isabella, now 14, and son Connor, 12.

The adopted children live with Cruise and his new wife, actress Katie Holmes, and Kidman complained recently that they refused to call her "Mummy." Shortly thereafter, Holmes rubbed her nose in it by revealing to the media that Isabella and Connor call HER "Mom." Ouch!  Kidman has said she had an ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of her marriage to Cruise and suffered a miscarriage at the time the couple split.

[Heraldsun.com.au]