Infertility in Mainstream Media
Disclaimer: This post is strictly about cis women and their fertility issues. While I understand that there are multiple points of view on fertility and what it looks like for every woman, this is my point of view as a cis, straight woman. I will be including some things but I know my own story best which will be the meat of this post.
Even though I am very young and should technically be right in my prime time for childbearing, fertility is something I have been thinking about and dealing with much earlier than a lot of people. Since I have endometriosis, I have known for a while that my ability to conceive naturally (if at all) is slim to none. I was 19 when I went in for surgery to diagnose my endo, and while they were in there they found out the extent of my issues as well as the fact that I have a retroflexed uterus, which basically just means that my uterus is tilted and folded. Even if I were to get pregnant and not miscarry, the odds of carrying a healthy baby fully to term with my uterus in the shape that it is is virtually non-existent. While I am ok with this (I never really wanted to have kids anyway), a lot of women have similar issues getting pregnant but it isn’t something that people talk about. When it is featured in tv and movies, it is always “We are having trouble conceiving”, and other really ridiculous and incredibly vague reasons why a couple can’t have a baby. In Friends, they talk about the reason Monica can’t conceive is that her womb is an “inhospitable environment”, which is not a real medical reason, and for someone who isn’t able to conceive, it feels like a slap in the face.
Society short changes women all the time; we aren’t shown as diverse characters, we often have fewer lines than men in tv and movies, we are always represented only as one stereotype after another, and to top it all off, when they are portraying women like this in media they pay them less than men. When women have cancer on television, they are often just portrayed as being “sick” and there are very rarely any further insights into it. I could go on and on about these things for years (and I will) but today I want to focus on fertility issues in media because, in my opinion, this is one of the worst ways we lie about female stories.
When it comes to pregnancy, the road is not easy for many women. There is a 1 in 4 chance that a woman will miscarry in the first trimester, which isn’t to say there is always a fertility issue there, it is just so common that most women will have a miscarriage in their lifetime. But how often do you see this talked about in the media? Shay Mitchel, an actress known for her role in Pretty Little Liars and Dollface, openly discussed her miscarriage before her then successful pregnancy with her daughter Atlas. She expressed the same fears so many women do when they talk about miscarriage; feeling like a failure as a woman, guilt over not doing something right, shame, and regret, when the reality is that so many of these early miscarriages happen for no reason other than the embryo just attached poorly. While miscarriages are a traumatic and upsetting experience, there is no need for them to be so isolating when so many women deal with it. This most likely comes from the fact that women are often seen as baby-makers and nothing more, so when they don’t work out the way they are supposed to, women are shamed since it must be their fault somehow. While putting these stories on television and in movies won’t change the whole conversation, it is an important step to normalizing what so many women deal with regularly. When celebrities like Shay Mitchel, Beyonce, Chrissy Teigen, Halsey, and Meghan Markel help to normalize it by showing even the people with the most money and access to health care still suffer this, it makes it easier to have the conversation. None of this makes the process any easier on women, and I do not want to suggest that it will; but maybe by telling these stories and showing how troubling it is to get pregnant, more women would feel open to having these conversations instead of shutting themselves away. I do not want to be confused that I think these issues need to be taken less seriously; they are heartbreaking every time even if you know the odds. But, it should be something women can share together and not feel like they have to hide it or pretend it didn’t happen to them. One of my favorite shows, The Bold Type, handled this very topic extremely well: one of the main characters, Sutton, has found out she is pregnant and has some mixed feelings about it since she just started her new promotion. She, unfortunately, suffers a miscarriage in her first trimester, for no other reason than it was just early and attached poorly, and you watch her go through all of the varying emotions she has about the whole situation. The pain, the sadness, the relief, and the guilt are there as she works through this complicated issue, and I have never loved a moment of tv so much. It was so raw and honest, and we need more of these moments for women.
Miscarriages aside, it is relatively common for women to have issues conceiving. Sometimes it just takes much longer than the woman and her partner wish, sometimes it just keeps not happening, and sometimes there are multiple miscarriages that lead a woman to her doctor’s office to find out what is going on. There are many reasons for this: endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, uterine fibroids, non-viable eggs, malformations in one of the reproductive organs, too much scaring from what I have listed above, injury to the abdomen, and many more. One show that I think portrayed the infertility issue well was Sex and the City. Charlotte has always wanted a family, but once she gets married and starts trying to have a baby, she quickly realizes that she is going to have a lot of trouble conceiving. They never give a specific reason for why she can’t conceive, but they go through all of the many different processes women can do in order to try and get pregnant. She tries hormone injections to boost her natural hormones, she attempts IVF multiple times, and they even look into adoption. She splits from her first husband, she has a miscarriage with her second husband, learns many of her eggs aren’t viable, and they even attempt to adopt a child from the states, which the birth parents ultimately back away from. Even though by the beginning of the first movie she is miraculously pregnant, this storyline got so much right and opened up so much about what infertility looks like, and that it doesn’t discriminate no matter how healthy or perfect you are otherwise.
Charmed is another show that does infertility well. Piper, one of the three main characters, gets married and wants to start her family. When noting is happening, she sees her doctor who tells her she has so much abdominal and uterine scaring that she will have an incredibly tough time getting pregnant. This is due to all of the accidents she has been in from fighting demons, and while most women aren’t out battling demons every day, an accident or scaring from your first pregnancy can affect a woman’s ability to get pregnant. She does get pregnant and they never really bring it up again, but I loved that they gave a real-world reason for why a woman wouldn’t be able to conceive.
Now, I’m sure other shows do it well too, but more often than not they get it terribly wrong. Movies and television often portray getting pregnant after struggling is as easy as just relaxing and not putting so much pressure on yourself. They make it seem as though if you do IVF once, use a surrogate once, simply sign up to adopt a child, it all will happen fast and seamlessly. None of this is correct. Sure, sometimes when a couple adopts and does quit putting so much pressure on themselves, they get pregnant. But that is not a guaranteed given. It is also not a magical fix to use IVF (doesn’t always work or work the first few times), a surrogate (doesn’t always take) or to adopt. When couples can’t conceive, it is made to look so easy when they get a baby in another way. It is a humorous plotline that ends with an “aww” and a happily ever after when it doesn’t for so many women. There is nothing wrong with any of the options listed above; they tend to be very expensive though, and hard both mentally and physically on the couple trying to make a family.
Like I said before, this is not going to be the ultimate fix for women dealing with infertility. But, having your story played on a tv show or in a movie can make you feel like you are not alone. It can give you hope that if others have conquered this issue then you will be able to also. Seeing stories portrayed in mainstream media that you can relate to ad empathize with is so important. We are a country and society so embedded within our media that by not sharing all the stories of women and the trials that we face, we are doing a disservice to over half the population. When something is put into a tv show, it is in there because it is common enough that many people will understand it and think to themselves “I’ve been there.” This is why there are so many plotlines about dating and weird hookups. But when something as common as infertility is negated from the conversation, it isolates women to think that it must not be so common, it must not be so normal, and it must be her fault for not being able to conceive While it is not exactly the same, this is why having stories about POC, queer people, and trans people in the media is so important. We all watch movies and tv to be entertained, but also to see stories about us being played on the screen. We want to see people who are like us, overcoming our same issues, and getting to do what we want to do. Why not include infertility in that?
When I went to Haiti in high school, I made up my mind to adopt children and not get pregnant. I already had this idea since I have quite a few friends that are adopted or have adopted children, and after seeing the vast extent of children in Haiti who had been orphaned, I made up my mind then and there before I knew I would likely never be able to get pregnant. So even though I am fairly certain I don’t want kids at all, if I ever change my mind, I am beyond happy to get to adopt a child who is already here and in need of a loving family. But I understand that my approach to this is not how every woman views it. It’s not how most women view their infertility, I would guess. I have also never tried to conceive and have it fail or want to be pregnant so bad I would consider all of the options I listed above. I cannot speak to this whole experience, but I can speak to how it feels to watch something about what I am dealing with, to only have it magically be resolved because the woman is relaxed and took a meditation class. There needs to be truth in the stories we tell in our media, and this is one of the biggest storylines we continue to do a disservice to. I recognize that as I get older, my thoughts and feelings on this could very well change. But the basic sentiment of making sure that the media is honest with the stories it tells about women remains the same.
For the rest of my life, this is something I will have to deal with. If Kevin and I were to ever break up I would have to tell that new person I was dating, and their families, and so on. It is troubling and frustrating, and so many women have to deal with it far worse than I do. And we need to be talking about it.
Madey
Cover art by Avery Lynch