Seemingly a plot anachronism in the 21st century, pregnancy has become huge in such recent movies as "Knocked Up" and "Juno." While those pregnancies are unintended, "Baby Mama" is their complete opposite, with a woman who will do anything to have a child.

"This movie is different. It's more a straight-up comedy with jokes," says Poehler, 36, during an earlier press gathering. Her character, Angie, dreams of a better life and nicer man. Along with class, "Baby Mama" deals with female fulfillment, and the kind of life Fey actually has.

Fey met her husband, "30 Rock" music supervisor Jeff Richmond, 10 years ago. They married in 2001. Alice arrived four years later.

"There was never going to be the right time to have a baby," Fey says. "I was pursuing a lot of things, so I decided that we'll see what sticks first. The TV show and the pregnancy happened to be green-lit at the same time. So we ended up pushing the pilot (back) for a year." Alice wasn't going to wait.

"On a good day while shooting '30 Rock,' if I'm lucky, I get to come home in time to play with my daughter and then put her to bed," Fey says.

"Baby Mama," set in Philadelphia, was filmed in Brooklyn with three days of location shooting. (Alas, it has some of the worst geographical verisimilitude since John Cusack's "Money for Nothing," the Joey Coyle story where Pittsburgh proved an absurd, and mountainous, substitute. Kate lives near a hilly Rittenhouse Square. When Poehler goes into labor in Philadelphia, the women rush across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to Camden to go to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Ugh.)

Fey went straight from completing the debut season of "30 Rock" to shooting "Baby Mama," though the second season loomed.

Other stars bring offspring and pets on location. Not Fey.

"Instead of a gym trailer, I brought the writers," she says. "Our '30 Rock' writers were in a camper on the street near the set. The camper was air-conditioned and windowless and the writers had the kind of laser focus that people have in a casino, when there's no sense of time."

She laughs at the memory. When "30 Rock" is in production, they come to her Upper West Side apartment at night so she can be with Alice and work.

The movie's multimillion-dollar question is whether two television actresses can open a movie.

"First of all, I think this is a movie that men would enjoy perfectly well," Fey says.

"And, secondly, this is a time when women need to say 'We're going to this movie.'" She lets out a laugh.

That said, Fey acknowledges it's a struggle to get men to see movies starring women, especially when most men consider "Saving Private Ryan" a period costume drama.

"This happens in my own life. When you get down to that Friday or Saturday night, no matter what you've read, when you go to the theater you kind of want to just have fun," she says. "You don't want to feel like you're taking your medicine and you don't want to be bored. I think, anecdotally, that men make that decision about what we're going to see more than women."

It took work, she confesses, to get her husband to "Enchanted," which he loved.

"This is not 'Sense and Sensibility.' This is not 'Wuthering Heights,'" Fey says. "I think this is pretty dude-safe. It's got a lot of funny dudes in it."