Infertility on Reality Television: Giuliana & Bill

I never quite understood the whole reality TV craze. To me, it's like a watching a giant train wreck: it's horrible to see and yet you can't look away. Of course, being the jaded consumers that we are, we know that so-called reality shows are not truly real (unnecessary drama will be added to the mix to keep it all interesting). Especially those that involve pseudo celebrities making fools of themselves. Whether they "invite" us into their homes or show off a few dance moves, we enjoy watching them unravel. Behind the bleached-teeth smiles and meticulously managed personas, they are like just like us: flawed in every way.

So when the Giuliana and Bill show started (now in its third season), I seriously had not interested in watching yet another celebrity couple vanish into the failed-Hollywood-marriages-heaven (or hell). Giuliana DePandi, host of E! and "Apprentice" winner Bill Rancic brought in cameras to follow them as they learn the juggle their public careers, a young marriage, all while flying back and forth between LA and Chicago. Well, I wished them good luck and moved on. 

Then I started hearing about their struggles to conceive and finally saw them speak out about it on "The View" during a show dedicated to infertility. So much about that episode bothered me but I'm not going to go into details here. What stayed with me was Giuliana and Bill's appearance and their openness about their difficulty to conceive. I was pleasantly surprised to see them be so open about it and glad that they didn't shy away from pointing the finger at their fellow Hollywood crowd for creating the perception that one can conceive whenever, with whom ever -- Giuliana talked about feeling duped by it all. 

Again through the rumor-mill teasing this season of the show, I came to find out that they had made their first attempt at IVF and that they had experienced a miscarriage. That's when I finally set my DVR to record the show and observe how the process of IVF, early pregnancy and miscarriage would be handled on national television.

The first episode of this season was their first foray into the world of IVF. There were genuine moments of fear, love and pain. What hit home (as I'm sure it will for you as well) was the part when Giuliana and Bill were trying to figure out their schedule to start IVF, and Bill pointed out all the conflicts he had with his speaking engagements/appearances. Giuliana then confronted him and reminded him that they need to be in this together and that the success of cycle must come first. I saw that this couple was for real -- Bill explained himself (wanting to provide for his family) and cleared his schedule. You get a gold star, Bill.

As they started their cycle, there was the shock of the amount of medications (read, injections) involved with an IVF cycle. Unfortunately, you never saw them taking the shots, nor could you even fathom how many are involved to make a cycle move along. Then there was the egg retrieval and embryo transfers. Perhaps because of their celeb status or maybe they have an ultra-friendly RE, but all the kisses on the cheeks and the warm smiles and the extensive personal attention took away from the clinical and austereness of the IVF experience. Maybe I'm just jealous that the most I go from my REs were sympathetic smiles from across the desk during my WTF meetings. 

Watching the show kind of reminded me of TV shows that misrepresent the way some careers work in real life; like how advertising agencies or hospitals function. You get a taste for the drama of it all but if you're in that field, you shake your head and say, "That would never happen!" So I go back to my initial point, reality-TV is not real. It's dramatized, edited and simplified for the masses. While Giuliana and Bill Rancic teased the show by openly admitting their infertility, the show in the way it depicted an IVF cycle wasn't nearly as real as it should have been. Certainly this is not an IVF documentary but an entertainment show (it's on The Style Network!), but here's a chance to televise a young couples journey through infertility and the physical (and financial, for many of us) toll of IVF was treated like an underpaid extra. 

What was genuine and felt un-dramatized were the emotional reactions of the Rancics, especially Giuliana's. Her fears were very clear. After all it is her body that will experience the hormonal upheavals. She unabashedly craved the attention she deserved during her recovery period. As a couple, they had to come clean to their families (or at least to Giuliana's mom) about the cycle. And after the transfer, there was that naive hope that we all have experienced after our first foray into the world of A.R.T. -- what should we name the baby/babies? OMG, what if we have twins! Let's get a baby name book! Let's buy a house in the 'burbs.

What made the announcement of a positive pregnancy test most heart breaking is to know how this all ends for this young couple. Like a train wreck, it's awful and yet I can't look away.