And
That is all.
Where has this been all my life?
We decided to cut our cable in the effort to save some money every month due to my new role as stay at home mom. I thought I would miss my Food Network and HGTV. It seemed like it would be a hard transition.
But Orange is the New Black. Making a Murderer. Fuller House.
I mean, come on. Fuller House. Which I may be watching right now while I am typing this. Probably has something to do with the inspiration for this post.
Again, I'm probably one of the last people to see these shows. Feel free to snicker.
But there is this scene in Fuller House that I heard about and wanted to see. It's where Stephanie tells D.J. about her infertility.
I grew up watching Full House. It was my favorite show. Never mind it was cheesy. (Never mind that the dance scenes in Fuller House is cheesy too.) It had good values; something missing in most "family" shows nowadays. But the infertility scene was so... not cheesy. In Full House standards. I sobbed my way through it. It's so rare to get a good glimpse of infertility in Hollywood. Besides for this show, the only other good infertility theme was in Downton Abbey.
The moment Stephanie tells DJ through tears, "I can't have children," I was in tears. Because oh I have so been there.
And DJ. She doesn't say any stupid crap like, "Just adopt! My friend's cousin did that and she got pregnant!" She doesn't put on a fake smile and say, "It will happen! Just believe!" And by God she doesn't mention Stephanie should, "Just relax! Go on vacation!"
Instead, DJ hugs her, asks if she's ok.
God, how many dumb comments could be avoided if the person just responded like that?
In my work as a case manager, we were trained in Motivational Interviewing. While the question, "Are you ok?" lends itself to be a bit constrictive and closed-ended, this was always such a relief for me when people would ask it.
"Are you ok?"
I could either tell them, yes, I was ok if I didn't want to get into it, or I could use that opportunity to open up and tell them how I really felt.
The one thing I still inwardly cringed at was when DJ tells her, "You should know that my kids are your kids. We love you."
I remember (I don't know exactly when this happened or who it was, but it was well into my infertility blogging) someone pointing to their rambunctious kids playing in the background after listening to me rehash my second failed IVF cycle and jokingly tell me, "You can have mine!"
So. Not. Helpful.
So was it the perfect infertility scene? The one that was true to life, that showed the pain, the heartache, the anger? No. But it was close. And that's a start.
Labels: Fertiles, Infertility education, Inspirational, life, Reasons infertility sucks
