Rant about a tv show

I just have to rant about a tv show I watched the other night. Sure, this tv show is fictional but shouldn't shows at least try to be somewhat realistic if they are based in the "real world" and not a fantasy type show like Star Trek or something?

Anyway, I was watching "Private Practice" - it was the last episode before the break - this episode reminded of how horrible that (thankfully) short-lived show "Inconceivable" was. It was that bad in its unrealistic take on infertility. In my opinion, if you're going to have a show centered on a fertility clinic, do you think it might be a good idea to get some kind of expertise in the area before writing about it? At least, "Private Practice" isn't centered just on infertility issues.

If you watch the show, but haven't watched this particular episode and you don't want spoilers, you should stop reading now...


Part of the episode had the storyline of a couple we've seen before (the couple that the woman couldn't seem to have sex). They came to the clinic this time because they've been trying for 2 months with no success and because the woman is no "spring chicken", as she put it, she wants to be checked for fertility issues. Dr. Montgomery said that they usually check after a year, but they went ahead and checked this couple anyway. It turns out the woman is fine - the guy has no sperm in his sample. So they decided to use a donor (his brother), and to do an IUI right then and there. Apparently, the woman was ovulating on that particular day. What a coincidence! They stopped the procedure at the last minute (because they hated the guy's brother) and asked if there was any other way to have their own biological child?

Well, it turns out, after some research, that there is this new procedure called testes sperm extraction (shouldn't an infertility expert know all about this already?), then they'll do ICSI. So they set the guy up for the procedure while at the same time setting up his wife for a retrieval...in the same room. So they're going to do an IVF without the woman taking any drugs or without any checking to see if she even has a mature egg to do ICSI with? Well, thankfully, she was coincidentally ovulating and the SINGLE egg was mature; they were also able to find one lonely viable sperm (do clinics even do IVF without some kind of egg stimulation? According to one of the comments to an article I linked below - only a few do a natural cycle IVF). They were able to do ICSI and the egg was fertilized! They then transferred the embryo into the woman and she left wondering if it was too early to feel pregnant. So they did the retrieval and the transfer the same day? No waiting for the embryo to further divide so that it had more of a chance to implant? Ugh! I would have felt better about this had they at least waited a couple days to the transfer.

Well, that ends my rant. Here's another take on it (it explains it a bit better than me).