It's Labor Intensive; Television * The Learning Channel's 'A Baby Story' featuring everyday couples has become the top-rated daytime cable TV series for women 18-34.: [Home Edition]

Rocio Calvillo was on summer break from her teaching job when, bored, she started channel surfing. She came upon a show that hooked her like a powerful drug. It wasn't a soap opera, but reality television showing people in excruciating pain, shedding all dignity and overcoming challenges that no man could endure. It was a show about women in labor.

Simple enough, as old as time, and yet for Calvillo, there was something entrancing about watching actual births, starring real- life couples.

She is not alone. The Learning Channel's "A Baby Story" is the top-rated show on daytime cable TV for women ages 18-34, with an average audience of 10.7 million a month and more than 4 million per week tuning in, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The show is the brainchild of Chuck Gingold, head of daytime programming for TLC parent Discovery networks. Gingold was also behind TLC's "A Wedding Story," which follows couples from planning through ceremony. In the fall of 1998, after seeing the success of "A Wedding Story," Gingold started thinking of other important passages in life.

"If weddings worked, why not babies?" he asked himself. At first it was a challenge to find volunteers. Producers Kristine Davis, Tara Sandler, Jennifer Davidson and Scott Templeton visited hospitals, Lamaze classes, birthing centers--even stopped pregnant women on the street--to find potential candidates for the show.

"We would see pregnant women in Jamba Juice and chase after them," Sandler said.

But today, after airing 188 episodes, the producers say they can't keep up with the supply. They receive up to 500 phone calls, e- mails and letters from prospective couples every month.

The show's success...