Infertility is a topic that comes up quite a bit on television shows. While fertility procedures are stressful and emotionally painful for those going through them, the procedures can be portrayed quite comically by the entertainment industry.

Take the television show Coach as an example. Their fertility treatment episodes aired before I went through fertility treatments myself, and I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard at Hayden walking around with a cold water device down his pants to cool his swimmers. I also found it hilarious when Hayden and Christine had a big argument. She stormed out of the room and then back in, pointed to the bed, and yelled, "I forgot! I'm ovulating!" When I actually lived that experience, it was not so funny.

I was surprised by how little time Chandler and Monica spent on fertility treatments on Friends, moving rapidly to adoption before the series ended. I found the struggles to conceive on Mad About You to be touching, especially how Paul and Jaime wound up conceiving after truly making love. Until this point, they had spent the season having sex with the focus on procreating rather than on connecting with each other.

However, I have seen many not-so-flattering portrayals of infertile women as well. The ones that bother me the most are those in which the infertile woman winds up stealing another woman's baby. These storylines generally start when the child is a teenager and sees her face on a milk carton. Yes, there are a handful of women who have done something this despicable, but most women who struggle with their fertility would not dream of stealing another woman's child.

This television reference is going to date me, but does anyone remember when Pamela Ewing almost jumped off the roof because she could not conceive a baby on Dallas? While fertility challenges are extremely painful, I do not know many women who considered ending their lives over them.

Overall, though, the media fares better when portraying infertility than it does in portraying adoption. (See my Hoping to Adopt blog for my evaluation of how the media portrays adoption.) I like how the media generally shows how deeply the characters appreciate their children when they finally do become parents.

Related Topics:

• Warning: Not to View
• Sex and the City

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt