Thinking about Charlotte’s fertility journey from Sex and the City

While I was in college, I can assure you that I never, ever thought about the concept of infertility. I naively thought that one day, I’d just get pregnant naturally, and poof! I’d have a baby!! Well, fast forward 16 years later, and here we are, trying to conceive with nothing to show for, not to mention annoying relatives and family friends who keep asking when they can expect us to have a baby. My mom actually said to me that if I “waited too long, your baby will have ‘problems.'” Thanks, Mom.

Unfortunately, you can’t just say something like, “We’ve been having tons of sex every day! You’ll know eventually!” because that would be rude… but hey, isn’t it rude for them to constantly ask and plant hints every chance they get?

So when I got addicted to watching Sex and the City, Charlotte York (eventually Goldenblatt’s) fertility journey was completely new territory to me. She struggled to conceive with two different partners, and after many tests, they discovered that she had some condition where her cervical fluid attacks sperm instead of fostering it along to merge with her eggs, and that she had less than a 10% chance of ever conceiving.

While it was heart wrenching to watch this and see her mental health go through a complete downward spiral, and while many of her moments have been relatable as I go through my own road of reproductive challenges, I will say that at times, she probably was a little too extreme in the way she was with her loved ones. To tell Miranda “How could you do this to me?” seemed pretty extreme, when Miranda accidentally got pregnant after having sex just once with Steve. One person’s pregnancy or success (and it definitely was NOT perceived as happy news to Miranda at that time) is not at the expense of another person’s; all our journeys are completely unrelated to each other. There’s also just the fact that we need to better compartmentalize our feelings and struggles from that of others.

Also, I will say that given the few times when she was with Trey and they showed the injections that were done during their IVF cycle, it was completely inaccurate to show butt shots. Butt shots are progesterone in oil injections that are done to prepare the lining of your uterus to receive and fingers crossed, successfully implant an embryo. That is WAY after stimulation cycle and egg retrieval. If they were at the beginning of their IVF stimulation cycle, the only injections needed (haha, “the only”) would be subcutaneously in the stomach region.

Because if they really had gone through egg retrieval and fertilization and were preparing for an embryo transfer… my next question, given that they eventually separated and divorced, would be… what happened to those potentially surviving embryos….?!

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