Five years from now:

Birth spectating becomes a profit center. When you check into a hospital maternity ward, you sign away your Birth View rights.

Classes from progressive elementary schools crowd into the delivery room, along with guys in trenchcoats who have season passes. Dad gets a free ticket . . . thanks to a bitter legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Everyone gets frisked at the door for wireless web cams; internet rights belong to the HMO. On the web site, folks post bets on the time of delivery, and whether the mom-to-be goes for an epidural.