Perhaps as many as 1 out of 6 couples faces some sort of fertility issue when trying to conceive a baby. To answer this need, science offers a smidgen of hope: the ability to harvest eggs, inseminate them, and plant the fertilized embryos in utero, giving conception a greater chance. Is it a perfect system? No it is not. The odds are likely still against you. But the numbers aren’t the only barrier to babies – so, too, is the cost. One fertility clinic therefore offers the chance to “win a baby” – really, just one course of in vitro fertilization. But this contest attracts many desperate people who make emotional appeals.
This is a really interesting documentary, and a heartbreaking one too. It addresses issues ranging from:
a) Is it even ethical to “give away” a baby as promotional material?
b) Is it exploitative to force fertility-challenged people to compete against one another?
c) What happens to all the “losers”?
d) Why are people willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to conceive, but unwilling to adopt?
e) Why do some countries consider infertility to be a legitimate medical condition deserving of coverage and treatment while the U.S. leaves infertile men and women high and dry?
e) After bankrupting themselves financially and emotionally, what happens to a couple who still doesn’t have a baby?
f) What happens when your heart tells you to pursue baby-making by any means possible, but your religion expressly forbids it?
Director Amanda Micheli has fertility problems of her own, and used the baby contest as a provocative conversation starter in this documentary, a film that takes a look behind the curtain at the subject that is so rarely talked about. It’s a well-made film that is interesting and worth of your time. Kudos to all the people who shared their journey and their private pain; fertility and infertility are little understood, so shining a light on this issue is an important step in humanizing a subject that really hits us at the core of our personhood. We take our fertility for granted and losing control over something our bodies are supposed to do naturally seems to be a demoralizing process. The film is full of heartbreak. But there are little rays of hope too, and Micheli does a good job of balancing the rain and the sunshine.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
This sounds fascinating.
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WTF? Tubularsock says, get your ego out of it and adopt. There are plenty of children that need good parents. This crap that one NEEDS their OWN baby is just bullshit! Get real! Love is real, use it!
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There are plenty of children that need good parents but for a lot of people, psychologically, if they can’t conceive a baby they don’t feel that they would make good parents. They feel like they are broken people and it can tear people apart. Not everyone is equipped to be a parent, physically or emotionally, and adoption requires an even larger level of emotional preparedness that many who are having fertility issues just don’t have.
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Chris you are correct. And the larger issue is that if one is not prepared for the responsibility of parenting then one should not have children, PERIOD! One has to “fix” oneself from feeling as a “broken person” BEFORE having children whether adopting or natural.
If one is trying to have a child to prove they are not broken then they sure aren’t strong enough to face the responsibility of parenting!
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Why so judgemental on people who feel broken by infertility? Why not have compassion instead of rushing to tear down people who are experiencing the terribly shitty infertility? It’s obvious you’ve never experienced infertility. Adoption doesn’t cure infertility. So women want to experience pregnancy and birth with their own eggs or donor eggs. What is wrong with that? Adoption isn’t a cake walk, either, like tubularsock stated. There are people who evaluate you to make sure you a good enough to be a parent. Also, the birth mother has to pick you out of many people. There’s a lot of competition. And adoption breaks up families so one family could have a child.
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Thanks for the heads-up on this one. Sounds very interesting.
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By the way, we saw The Big Sick. Loved it!
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Yesss! Knew it.
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Well I’m past my sell-by date on this stuff, agree with tubular sock mostly.
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This sounds like a really interesting documentary and I’m so glad this issue is being brought to light. I have a few friends who went through the process and it’s one of the toughest things someone can go through. I will be sure to watch this (btw – sorry for my absence in recent months!)
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It’s very difficult but it’s something we’re still mostly quiet about. Of course we know that it must be painful for people to talk about, but I bet not talking about it is also painful.
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So true
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“Why are people willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to conceive, but unwilling to adopt?” I’ve been asking myself that question ever since my stint at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. I’ve never been able to figure it out. This sounds really interesting.
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Yeah, it’s a hard one.
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Adoption doesn’t cure infertility.
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Sounds like a really fascinating watch and a very emotive one. The adoption question is a particularly big one and I can appreciate both views, but I guess the natural instinct in many is not just to love a child, but to nurture life from the beginning. That’s not saying there are many others who discard the notion of adoption for other reasons.
Anyhoo, I’ll keep an eye out for this one.
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This sounds like a really interesting documentary. It’s such a sad situation for people to be in (to want a child but struggle to conceive) but it really is crazy how much money gets spent on fertility treatments when there are so many existing kids in need of a home.
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That’s a tough one. It must have taken such courage for people to share their stories in this documentary. I will be watching it.
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Yeah, it’s a huge deal. Women seem to feel that they’re not really women if they can’t conceive, and for men it’s a macho issue (neither are actually correct, but people can’t help feeling what they feel). And for quite a few, they’re going against what their church tells them is ‘right’ so they’re risking a lot emotionally and otherwise, never mind that this is just hard to talk about. But by keeping it secret we don’t appreciate how common it is.
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I will add it to my playlist & watch it this week…. by the way… Do you have anything to recommend involving the Roswell issue?… xx 😉 Thank you!
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Very interesting read indeed.
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Those are good questions to raise and for there to be more awareness for infertility. Most people who say if you’re struggling with infertility to just adopt. Those are the same people who have kids of their own and pass off judgement too easily. There seems to be much more awareness for these pro abortion rallies and not enough for all of the women who silently struggle with having a child of their own. My heart goes out to every woman that struggles because I’ve been there. For six years I rode that roller coaster but never did IVF because it was too expensive and both parents have to have flexible jobs for all the doctor visits. I would like to know the real why behind why the clinic did the lottery. Seems like just a marketing ploy but maybe they really wanted to help at least one person who might have not been able to afford it.
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