The Enquirer features the headline “Angelina Loses Baby!” this week with a picture of her concave belly on the cover, which suggests to the quick-glancing supermarket patron that she suffered a miscarriage of the tabloid-conceived baby we all were crossing our fingers for last month. Inside the issue the Enquirer comes up with not one but two lost babies to back up their single-baby claim.

The baby they first say Angelina lost was a little girl she wanted to adopt from Ethiopia. That might be true, I give it about a 25% chance of being based on anything more than the writer’s imagination. Then The Enquirer pushes it by saying she also “believes she suffered a miscarriage” according to “insiders,” meaning she lost two babies, not one. The article confuses me a little considering there’s only one lost baby in the title, and I have to conclude it refers more to the baby that we all had worked up in our imaginations rather than any specific one, adopted or biological:

[Angelina Jolie] is devastated over losing the baby she had her heart set on adopting – and to make matters worse, insiders say she believes she also suffered a miscarriage. [emphasis added]

The 32-year-old beauty was overjoyed when she learned she was getting another little sister for daughter Zahara, say sources

But [Angelina] was crushed when African adoption authorities turned down her request for a second Ethiopian baby, revealed a friend…

The heartbreaking news came right after another shock for the golden couple – the torment of miscarriage, said the friend.

“Angelina thought she was pregnant. She was feeling dizzy and tired and nauseous, just like she was with her baby Shiloh. Both she and brad were ecstatic at first, but they she started menstruating much heavier than normal and was in a lot of pain. Ultimately, they believe she miscarried.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, November 26, 2007]

Note how carefully they word the miscarriage claim, not saying that someone claims she lost a baby, but that an “insider” says she believes she suffered a miscarriage, with vague physical symptoms the only supposed proof that she might have been pregnant. The lost adopted baby claim is supported not by some official in Ethiopia, but also according to an unnamed friend, so it’s suspect as well. Poor Angelina, losing all these babies we invented for her.

Meanwhile Angelina’s nearly two year old daughter from Ethiopia, Zahara, had her biological mother and grandmother come out of the woodwork this week. It was thought that Zahara’s mom was no longer living, but her grandmother disputes making that claim, saying she always maintained her daughter ran away. We heard from Zahara’s grandmother that little Zahara was conceived when her mother was raped, and Zahara’s mom, Mentwabe Dawit, spoke to the press, telling the harrowing story of how she was raped at knifepoint while walking home from work, which resulted in her pregnancy with Zahara. She says that she left her newborn daughter, who she named Yemsrach, which means good news in Amharic, in the care of her mother when she was no longer able to feed her. She thought that Zahara was dying and didn’t want to have to be there to witness her baby die. Dawit also says she does not want Zahara back and that she “is a very fortunate human being to be adopted by a world famous lady.”

Zahara’s mom looks a lot like her, you can see Zahara’s nose and mouth in her features. I hope she has found peace after going through such a terrible ordeal. She will certainly be able to see plenty of pictures of her daughter if she is able to read the international press or get to a computer.