For the last two weeks, you have been trying to find the movie, Mother and Child, at your local library. Why? Because it is a good movie and you love Annette Bening? No. Because the movie has to do with infertility. It happens like this. You see a movie trailer, whether a comedy or drama, where the main character is struggling with infertility, adopting or yearning for a child and you have to see it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a comedy about Jennifer Lopez attempting to get comical during an IUI or Jennifer Aniston looking for a sperm donor at her 40th birthday party, you want to see it because you seem to like to torture yourself.
Some people claim they have ‘gay-dar.’ When it comes to movies, you have infertility-dar.
You end up seeing the movie, leaving the theater in tears and feeling angry that they didn’t portray the character in a realistic light. What the fertile?! got pregnant on her first IUI? What happened to doing multiple IUI’s and then moving onto IVF because it didn’t work? And look, Jennifer Aniston found her sperm donor and bing, bang, boom, she is pregnant after one month. And of course, you also cried a little during the ridiculous comedy, Baby Mama where Tina Fey wants to be a baby mama but needs some help. Word of caution. When you see a movie with an infertility plot, it usually has a happy baby ending.
But since you never learn, for the last two weeks, you have been to four libraries trying to reserve the movie, Mother and Child. And this time, you will make your husband watch it with you so you can torture him as well.
Until the next infertility movie trailer and the film/torture cycle begins again.
LOL. My husband comes into the room when I’m watching these and I pause it and start yelling about how inaccurate it is or how “then, of course, she gets pregnant” or “that would never happen!” or “why aren’t doctors telling them that they shouldn’t be worried about IF, yet, it’s only been four f’ing months” (that was last night at the TV) and he says “I don’t think you should watch these anymore.” But, I can’t help it!!! It’s like a sickness.
The saddest one I have seen is the story of the couple in “Up”…still makes me cry every time. And then at the end, he reads her book. Tearing up now.
up still makes me cry. Every time I watch the beginning of the movie. Every time. Another infertility {more spiritually based} movie is Facing the Giants. I couldn’t stop bawling through almost the entire film. Seriously. Why do I continue to torture myself? Honestly I haven’t watched Baby Mama again since I found out I was infertile…too scared to I guess.
OMG!! When I first watched Baby Mama I lost it. Then I came to work the next day and people were talking about it and quoting the procedures like the gospel and before I knew it I gave a one hour workshop on IUI and IVF’s.
Immediate Family with Glen Close – about infertility and adoption – used to be my favorite years ago. I saw it a month ago and almost put my foot through the TV. I always wanted to be Glen Close but some days her Fatal Attraction character looks more appealing. At least she did get pregnant.
Up was seriously the hardest one for me because it was more realistic – no happy ending baby. But it’s still my favorite! The one I absolutely HATED the most was Did You Here About the Morgans. Someone needs to give Hollywood a kick in the head and shins.
Don’t forget PREG-DAR:
“The ability to spot a knocked-up woman before she’s made the announcement; a radar used for baby bump detection.”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pregdar
You can even buy PREG-DAR t-shirts, mugs, caps, mousepads etc by following that link.
Being an infertile I used my sharply honed PREG-DAR to detect my former best friend’s pregnancy from 1/2 way around the world because she got sloppy with keeping it a secret on her Facebook wall.
grr! I just watched “The Kids Are Alright” the other day. Yet I still keep these infertility-dar movies in my Blockbuster queue
Did anyone else see the recent CSI Miami, where the pregnant woman asks her infertile, TTC blonde friend to throw her baby shower? Was I the only one cheering the blonde friend on when she flipped out?
Dana – did she kill her? I hope so. Last night I watched an Agatha Christie Miss Marple mystery on Netflix instant that actually had an IF plotline (no, I’m serious) – this spoils the ending, but the murderer, an infertile woman, offed a seemingly random woman who it turns out unknowingly caused the IF gal to miscarry her only-ever pregnancy by giving her rubella. I was not sympathetic to the murderer, but only because one week after she got her BFP, she gave away her three adopted children. The IF best friend asked to throw the shower – I would be sympathetic to her.
i saw that CSI Miami, and no, she didn’t kill her best friend. it was actually instigated by the husband if i remember correctly.
i hated ‘did you hear about the morgans’!!! it made me so mad!!!
a good IF movie is maybe baby. its a british comedy and much more realistic i thought.
I HATE Facing the Giants. My MIL suggested we watch it, knowing what we were going through. I had to watch just to see what would happen at the end, but afterward I hated myself. Why, oh why, did I do that to myself? I then felt guilty that maybe I hadn’t been faithful enough and that was why we hadn’t been able to get pregnant yet, which I know now is a load of garbage. Do not watch it.
Another I just remembered while flipping through the channels is Raising Arizona, made sometime in 1987. Holly Hunter and Nicholas Cage end up stealing a baby after their battle with infertility. In the end they give it back. It could be humerous for those of us that have had secret thoughts of stealing babies, although we know we never really would.
Maybe Baby was actually written by someone who had been though infertility and was quite a good watch.
Mother and Child is avaliable on Netflix DVD!
Maybe if you could actually bear watching it, Juno is a movie about a teenager confronting an unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent events that put pressures of adult life onto her. It’s supposed to be a comedy, but I wouldn’t find anything funny about it personally, unless I was absolutely wasted on a bottle of red first!
I got excited when I saw mother and child had finally come to our library. “did you hear about the morgans” drove me crazy!! They stuck faithfully to “just adopt and you’ll get pregnant”.
Interestingly, “couples retreat”, has a small IF angle to it. Anyone read “foreign body” by Robin Cook? I was suprised that the protagonist was going through IF. Cook described her frustrations, injections, follicle scans and finally IUI. She did get pregnant, but the author was quick to note that “she knew she was pregnant from having sex the day after trigger, and not because of the IUI” WTF??
Thanks for the other suggestions …need to rent “maybe baby” and “raising arizona” ’cause I need a good cry.
HAHAH!!! This movie is in my Netflicks Queue! LOL.
[...] here: #690 You Order Infertility Movies from your Library VA:F [1.9.6_1107]please wait…Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)VA:F [1.9.6_1107]Rating: 0 (from 0 [...]
@Belinda – I’m with you on the pradar! It’s almost like a 6th sense for me now. I’ve been known to call it before the pregnant one even knew – told my sister she was for like 2 months before she took an hpt just to prove me wrong – guess who was right!
I usually just wait until these movies come out on dvd – don’t trust myself to watch then in public! And I’m fairly certain I was the only person in the theater crying over Despicable Me… But when you bring up orphans, you’re talking about my (not yet known, but already loved) babies!
Wow…you guys are brave! Infertility movies still give me a knot in my stomach, even now after having a baby. They either scare the crap out of me (I’ll never get pregnant) or piss me off because the main character gets knocked up after one round of Clomid-50mg at that-and timed intercourse-not even an IUI! Anyway-I still try to avoid all of them if I can!
Sooo true…though not a movie, How I Met Your Mother is currently running an IF subplot…I’ve yelled at the TV many times. Lily and Marshall go the the RE after 4 (omg 4??) months of trying…and she gets a phonecall that says – congrats you ARE fertile!! If only it were that simple….
I just had my donor IUI’s done on the 11th and 12th, so I thought The Back-Up Plan would be a good movie to watch to ‘visualize’. I forgot how pissed that movie makes me! She gets pregnant her first go round, ok, awesome, that’s what I’m hoping for after 18 months TTC.
And then she’s pregnant and she’s a whiny brat throughout the whole thing.
I need to watch a real IF movie with a happy ending during this TWW, lol.
Forget Paris was the first movie I hunted for… I seemed to remember something about it having infertility as part of the plot when I watched it ages ago (and thought there was no way that could really happen). Now I have those thoughts when someone gets pregnant naturally (go figure). It wasn’t as far off as some of the others you mentioned. I have searched netflix multiple times and can, with a good conscience, save everyone the time of checking for a movie on there that might have a more realistic feel. Nothing I’ve seen has come anywhere closet, but I do keep looking:) This site is the most realistic sense of what it’s like that I’ve found…thanks for that!
“Her her insides here a rocky place, where my seed could find no purchase” H.I.
One of my favorite quotes for Raising Arizona.
My husband and I joke about stealing one of his sister’s children, she has a 6 month old, 3 year old and, 5 year old.
“I need a baby Hi, they got more than they can handle. don’t you come back here without a baby!”
I strictly recommend not to wait until you earn enough cash to order goods! You should take the loan or term loan and feel yourself fine