Infertility In Pop Culture

Infertility can sometimes be a little overpowering, so to match the beautiful day that we are blessed with today, I decided to go with a lighter sub-topic and have a little bit of fun. Cause even if we are dealing with something that is depressing and exhausting, it doesn't mean that we can't also be lighthearted and fun!

Everyone loves when they find a show/movie/book that shows their struggles in a realistic way. It's not the struggle so much as the relating to something in popular culture. By seeing it publicly acknowledged, it makes you feel less alone and more "normal". This is no different for those that deal with infertility. When it comes to infertility many feel uncomfortable talking about it or having it shown to them. We openly talk about our reproductive organs when there is a pregnancy to announce, but many will feel uncomfortable when someone mentions that their reproductive organs are not working.

Lately, there has been a growing number of movies, books and TV shows showing infertility and infertility related topics. Some cover infertility regularly, some just have a couple of episodes or part of a movie or book that will touch on it. They are showing infertility as a disease or as a lifestyle option (ie: LGBT).  Today, I want to share some of my favorites with you. Shows, movies or books about infertility that I can relate to or enjoy regardless of their topics of infertility. If you know of any that I missed that you think I or others would enjoy, PLEASE SHARE!

TV:

How I Met Your Mother:  In season seven, they aired an episode where Robin finds out that she is not able to have children. She is the narrator of the episode and she is telling the story to her children. She finds out through a pregnancy scare that she will never be able to get pregnant and it shows the emotional side of coming to terms with her diagnosis. At the end of the episode while still narrating to her "children" she states, "Why am I telling you this? Because you don't exist" and the picture of the kids dissolve to show her sitting alone on a park bench in the snow drinking eggnog and mourning her diagnosis. Robin always stated that she never wanted to be a mother so she is surprised by the emotions she is facing with the diagnosis. She comes home to her friend Ted trying to cheer her up even though he doesn't know the reason why she is so upset. She decided to not tell her friends about her infertility because she knows how they will deal with it and she can't deal with that.I truly appreciated the approach that the show took to share this sensitive topic.

Season six showed Lily and Marshall trying to conceive. It showed the worries of not getting pregnant right away and even went so far as to show Marshall getting checked out by a specialist.The season finale of season six, Lily and Marshall find out that they are pregnant, but they do touch on the feelings and worries that come with a pregnancy not happening in the time frame you expect and it shows you the first steps someone goes through when they make the move to get checked out.

Smash, Modern Family, Sex and the City: All 3 shows deal with international adoption.  Modern family deals with a gay couple adopting internationally while the other two turn to international adoption after trouble conceiving naturally.

The Little Couple:  They are publicly showing the process of surrogacy with their own embryos. They are also looking into adoption and are showing some of their home studies. If they do not succeed in surrogacy, they plan to adoption a child with special needs (they are favoring adopting a child who deals with dwarfism.)

Golden Girls:  Blanche's daughter is single and chooses to be a single mom by using donor sperm.Blache has issues with this at first but later comes around to the fact that her daughter will have a baby, with or without a father.

Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood: Ed and Al’s teacher has a stillbirth child and due to complications after the stillbirth including a storyline of trying to bring the child back to life, she is no longer able to have children. Shows the couple living childfree and the pain of living childfree when childfree is not a choice but the only option.

Movies:

Up:  I still sob when I watch the opening scenes of this movie. During the montage of their life together, Carl and Ellie get pregnant, lose the child via miscarriage and are unable to have anymore children. It is implied that they will never be able to have children so they live childfree.

Men With Brooms: One of my favorite Canadian movies. One of the curlers deal with low sperm count and the movie actually shows them talking with a fertility specialist about donor sperm. While it is not the most accurate depiction of male infertility, it still raises awareness.

Twister: Dr. Melissa Reeves, aka the fiancé, is an infertility therapist.

Julie/Julia: Tells the story of Julia Child and her husband and how when they find out that they cannot have children, she pursues her love of food and cooking and trains in the culinary arts and masters french cooking.

Fictional Books:

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult: A fairly accurate depiction of IVF, treatments and the prep for treatments. It also covers a late term miscarriage, poor sperm quality, repeat pregnancy loss, donor eggs, egg adoption, gay rights and embryo rights. 

This is just a small sampling of infertility in the media. In many cases, I stumbled across it and was surprised to see the topic or had previous contact to them and only realized when watching after our diagnosis that it was there (for instance, Twister). In other situations, I actively sought out the media (the book was suggested to me within the community).

So we went with a lighter feeling with today's post. As always, I encourage communication with me and others about infertility and welcome all comments and thoughts. As a side note, if there is anything that you would like to share with me or others during NIAW, please leave your thoughts. If you would like to see a particular theme in a post or a topic that you would like me to tackle, please let me know. I'm also asking that if you have any specific questions, either about us and our specific diagnosis or just infertility in general, you can comment or message me privately on facebook and I will gather all the questions together at the end of the week and use that as my final post on the last day of NIAW. Please share with your friends and family and help us raise awareness for the 1 in 8 that suffer.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and read about infertility.