If Only Life Were Like TV

I was home alone last night, doing other things with the TV on in the background. (Horrible, horrible habit. Must stop as soon as baby is in utero.) There wasn't anything I much wanted to see on, so I ended up watching a show called Private Practice, which was new to me. As far as I could tell, it was a random assortment of wealthy, horny doctors with no particular medical speciality. They sleep around and have various ethical dilemmas, all of which end with pensive staring or loving hugs or poignant betrayals.

One ethical dilemma focused on infertility--although there was literally not one other case in the practice as part of the storyline, to tell me whether they were all supposed to be reproductive endrocrinologists. I won't get into the details of the story, though, because it was pretty mundane, as story lines on over-the-top prime time dramas go. What I found so fascinating is the way Hollywood makes infertility look--like all you do is yank an egg out, swirl it around in a petri dish with a happy little sperm, pump in back in, and there you go, you're pregnant. Instead of the heavily anestheisized process that is actual egg retrieval, egg retrieval in Hollywood involves a perky blond, sitting up and awake during the process, asking, "Okay, you've got my eggs?" (Whereas I know that every woman asks, based on a sample size of two, is "How many eggs did you get?" desperately and groggily, several minutes after it's over, hoping never to experience the horror of Gonal-F again.)

Then came the fertilization part, which involved everyone who wanted to be there, perky blonde and her parents included, standing around in a room while the doctor dramatically announced, "I'm going to fertilize the egg now." Egg, as in singular. As in no embryologist, just a little needle and a nice little egg. We shoot it up and you're pregnant by the end of last commercial break. Now THAT is a fantasy.