Infertility on TV

Did you watch How I Met Your Mother last night? What did you think?

I actually didn't watch it when it was on, but I saw a lot of people in my Facebook feed talking about how funny shows shouldn't make people cry and people were feeling sad. So this morning, knowing what it was about (kind of) I decided to watch it on CBS.com.

I have to say, I was kind of annoyed at all my well-meaning friends for the first 20 minutes of the show. (On CBS.com, it's only a 21 minute show!) It was a funny episode, I thought. Dark, of course, which is really the only kind of humor around when having invasive tests at the RE's office. As we all know.

Then the last few minutes were kind of a gut-punching twist that I wasn't expecting. Took me right back to 2005, it did.

**SPOILER**

Infertility and the death of a parent... sheesh. That's crappy. But hey, at least they're not actually infertile. It just hasn't happened for them yet. Which, whatever. It was clearly the worst year of my life that began with the death of my mother and ended with an infertility diagnosis. I wouldn't wish that year on an enemy or a stranger. Or even a fictional TV character.

But it wouldn't be bad to see a TV character actually be infertile and continue to live their lives. Come on TV, show us what it's really like. I'm sure that whatever show tried to actually document infertility would get terrible ratings.

On the other hand...

You know what show on TV that I have always thought deals with infertility in a sensitive and almost realistic way? King of the Hill. Seriously.

I don't know how many people watch King of the Hill anymore. It's on Cartoon Network and Fox reruns late at night. But the thing I love about the infertility story line is that it comes up sometimes. Hank and Peggy had trouble conceiving Bobby, and now he's 12 or 13. They would have liked to have had more children, but they never did. But 13 years later, it still kind of bugs them.

Sometimes. Not always, and since their son is 13, they've kind of moved on. But every once in a while, they'll talk about wishing they could have had other children, or that they would like to try to have another baby. (This is where the realism comes in...) But of course, Peggy never gets pregnant again. And the best part is that they just live their lives. They have this sadness around this one part of their lives, something they always wish could have been different.

And just like in real life, they always wish their lives had been different, but they weren't. This is their life, and they continue to live it. I'm sure if the show had been focused when Bobby was 2 or 3 and Hank and Peggy were TTC again, infertility would have taken over a lot more space on the show. But since he's in middle school, they're dealing with middle school, and "Boy, I wish we had been able to have more children..." comes up once in a while.

The thing that I always wondered about King of the Hill and infertility is because it's so sensitive and realistic, I wondered which writer had that personal experience. Because seriously, who's going to imagine that that's how it feels? Clearly writers can't, otherwise How I Met Your Mother would have ended differently. Or Charlotte never would have (finally) gotten pregnant (with one *of her own*) after adopting from China in Sex and the City. Or any of the other contrived infertility tropes we see on TV and in movies.

So knowing that someone who worked for King of the Hill had that personal, first-hand experience kind of makes me sad for that person. Because as I said earlier, I wouldn't wish it on an enemy or a stranger. Or a fictional TV character. Or, apparently, the writers of said fictional TV characters.

Have you seen infertility portrayed in new and interesting ways on TV lately?

The Waiting Game

Well friends, the day has finally arrived. Our last bit of paperwork has been submitted and we are officially waiting. I suppose not officially, since I just mailed the stuff today. We filled in all the checklists and budgets and releases and whatever else, stuck it in the mail today and sent it off. I guess we'll be officially waiting on Thursday when the agency receives the paperwork. I'm celebrating today though. I figure that since it's now out of our hands and on its way, I'm counting us as waiting from today.

So I introduce you to the Lilypie ticker. It's going to help me keep track of how long we wait. I imagine it'll be long, but there's always the hope that it'll be short.

For a fun quote on the subject of waiting, we turn to the wisdom of Homer Simpson.

"Well, John Q. Driveway has our number. Now we play the waiting game."

(Long pause)

"Awww, the waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos!"

I suppose in our particular case, it's not John Q. Driveway who has our number. So for us, I could say, "Well, John Q. Adoption-Agency has our number. Now we play the waiting game!"

Anyone want to play the waiting game with me? Of course, I'm with Homer - I'd much rather play Hungry, Hungry Hippos too.

Venting

I'm just going to take a moment to point out something that bugs the crap out of me.

I *HATE* this commercial.

"It's 2 AM.... Christmas morning... our first Christmas as a family."

After feeling angry that Kay Jewelers obviously thinks that Mister and I are not a family, I feel sad for these 2 jackasses that their lives had no meaning until apparently 2 months ago when they made a baby.

Now, in order to present the most balanced approach, I will say that it's possible that they were not a family last Christmas. My parents were married in January and my brother was born in December of the same year. So Christmas 1973 really was my parents' first Christmas as a family. And they had a new baby. So while it's possible that these people were married in early January and got pregnant immediately thereafter, I really don't think that's the Kay implication on that one.

So yuck on that commercial. Because Mister and I are a family. A small family, but a family nonetheless. Whether we ever have a baby or not, Mister is my family.

Because I don't want to leave on a sour note, I will sign off with my absolute favorite Christmas commercial in the history of Christmas commercials.

I love that little red kiss with the solo at the end. And then he's so worn out he has to wipe his brow. As if a Hershey Kiss has a brow! It's so cute.

What commercials do you love (or hate) lately?

Another puzzler

I've gotten the early seasons of Grey's Anatomy from Netflix.

I'm in a tough spot - I really like characters and the stories. Did I ever tell you I'm afraid of doctors, blood and needles? Like pathologically afraid. I can't even watch it on TV. So I watch Grey's by turning my head mostly.

There was just a train wreck on Grey's Anatomy and a guy ran through the door holding someone's leg. I almost puked.

Here's my solution - I watch it on my computer and put it in the background. I surf the web and just listen.

But the question remains, why do I even like this show? Seriously. I think something is wrong with me.

Dealing With Grief, part 2

For those of you who missed Dealing with Grief, part 1, here it is.

For those of you who don't want to go back and read it, (I understand... it's long) here are the Cliffs Notes version

- My mom died of cancer in 2005.

- For a long time, I felt like I had dealt with her death, but truly, I wasn't (probably still am not) entirely sure what it means to have dealt with someone's death.

- I still miss her terribly, and cry at every sappy TV/movie mother-daughter moment.

Dealing with Grief, part 2

Has anyone watched The Big C on Showtime? I have. I love it. I laughed my butt off and didn't cry once. It's all about a woman who has been diagnosed with skin cancer, and she completely changes her current life in order to fulfill what she thinks the rest of her life should be. That idea of "live like you're dying" becomes her attitude as she faces her own mortality. It's really quite a funny show.

I don't know what it means that I can watch a show about a woman confronted with cancer and how she begins to plan the rest of her life with the end in mind. I watched 2 episodes of Big C last night and I didn't shed a single tear. Oh no, this show is hilarious. The concept is sad, but the material is funny. I'm fairly certain that my mom would have enjoyed this show.

Speaking of which, I've always heard people who have lost someone say things like, "Oh, she would have loved such and such...." I really haven't done that much for my mom. There are a few things that I would say "Mom would really have loved..." I think The Big C is one of them. Wii is another. I can't even believe my mom has been gone longer than we've had our Wii. My mom would freaking love to play Wii. I bet she'd be a champ at the balance board games.

Wii, of course, is a separate topic altogether. I started this entry to say 2 things - I love The Big C, and I'm counting it as some kind of a "dealing with grief" victory that I wasn't choked up watching it.

Also, Big C was filmed in Connecticut and I recognized one of the places in the show last night! I saw one of the stores and said, "Oh, I know just where they are!" That's always a fun feeling.

Big Brother Spurs Weight Loss

One thing to know about me is that I’m lazy. Lazy probably doesn’t even cover it. I may even stretch into the territory of slothful. I’m perfectly content to sit on the couch all day long and watch TV. Even if it’s bad TV, even if I don’t care about what’s on. Which is how I got into Big Brother in the first place. I think I watched one episode of one of the first seasons and I didn’t really get it. Then another year, someone whose blog I read really really liked it, so I tried to get into it, but I was not into the commitment of watching any show 3 times a week. That’s a lot of time to devote to one TV show. So I passed on it for many years.

Last year, I watched a whole season of Big Brother for the first time. It was kind of an accident that I watched it - I found it streaming on Netflix after the season had begun. In one day, I watched about 5 episodes. It was crazy, and I still hadn’t caught up with all the episodes there were. So the next day, I tried to be more disciplined about watching Big Brother. “Just one episode,” I’d tell myself, “and then you have to go do something. After one episode, unload the dishwasher. Then you can watch another episode.” I tricked myself into doing those household chores I hate by watching another episode of Big Brother. It worked. In that one day, I was able to do so many things that I had been putting off. And I loved that Netflix (and CBS too, I later discovered) streamed the episode the next day, so if we went out and weren’t home in time, I could just watch it later.

Going back to the laziness part of my story, it really bothered me in years past to admit that I just sat around all day watching TV. As a teacher with summers off, I always felt like I had to take good advantage of my time off. People think it’s 12 weeks of summer, and that you don’t do anything during that time, but my summer breaks had always only been about 8 weeks. 2 of those weeks in August are spent prepping the classroom, so I’m down to 6 weeks of vacation. Usually 1 or 2 of those weeks are spent in some professional development class, so now I’m down to about 4 weeks of vacation. Then if the Mister and I went anywhere for a week, that’s 3 weeks of lazy hazy days of vacation. 15 weekdays. Really, don’t get me wrong, because I’m not complaining that that’s a short amount of time at all. I always just felt like with 15 weekdays, that’s not much, so can I afford to waste several of them watching bad reality TV that I don’t even care about? No way.

Then at the end of the 2008-2009 school year, I got laid off. I was unemployed for the entire 2009-2010 school year. I’ve had a (thus far) 56 week summer vacation. And no end in sight. I have no job for 2010-2011 either, which can be addressed in a separate post.

So now, I have plenty of time this year for Big Brother. 3 hours of TV in a week? Pffft. That’s nothing. Well, when Mister and I moved in March, I called the cable company to renegotiate our package. I asked for more channels or to pay less. They were able to throw in a package that includes some movie channels, including Showtime.

Now I’m obsessed with Big Brother. 3 hours of TV in a week? Oh no, that’s just CBS. Every night, Showtime runs 3 hours of the live feeds from the Big Brother house for Big Brother After Dark. Big Brother now costs me 24 hours a week, and I’m kind of OK with that. Time is what I have, after all.

But the good news about watching 3 hours of Big Brother every day has awoken some part of me that has decided I can no longer be slothful. There is something disgusting about sitting on a couch watching 3 hours of other people sitting on couches. So now, instead of unloading the dishwasher, I try to tell myself that for every episode of Big Brother, I have to spend one hour exercising. Because there’s nothing slothful about people who exercise.

So there, Big Brother! I bet you never thought that because of your dumb show, people would get angry and start exercising and losing weight. Well, I don’t miss an episode of Big Brother, and I sure as heck don’t miss those 6 pounds.