Flabbergasted....

I just read the update here from Mel about the Tyra banks show on infertility. My jaw hit the floor, and in my outrage this is what I wrote to the producers, or whoever reads her email:

"This is absolutely outrageous! As a woman who has been struggling with infertility for 2 and half years, I am flabbergasted by the audacity of this suggestion. You make infertility sound like something that needs an intervention! No, interventions are for people with addictions; infertility is a MEDICAL CONDITION. In my mind, this is the same as asking the family of someone going through Breast Cancer to tell the patient to change the way they are dealing with their problems. Why go through the chemotherapy? Just cut your breasts off because THAT will remove the emotional heartache of it all, and make it easier on the rest of us around you who feel, and I quote, "unvoiced jealously and seen her desperation first hand".

I am so outraged by this that words cannot even begin to describe what I feel and really want to say to anyone who thought this was a decent thing to do. Shame on the people who respond to this because they like the idea, shame on you Tyra for endorsing it, and shame on your producers too. Infertility is very much an internal struggle that many people seek counseling for. The LAST thing anyone in such a vulnerable state needs is to publicly relive their pain. In addition to all of that, if it isn't enough for you, this set-up will most likely make the woman going through infertility feel like she has lost all support from her family during a time when she needs understanding the most.

Lastly, this blurb makes it seem like adoption and surrogacy is easy! Can't get pregnant? Just adopt! I am 100% for adoption if it is something that a couple wants to do. Adoption builds families too, which is wonderful, but it cannot be forced on someone. Adoption is very expensive, it can take years for finances, paperwork, lawyers, and social workers to fall into place. Not to mention the home visits, portfolios, birth mother meetings, travel plans, oh and the possibility things falling through at the last minute because the mother has decided she wanted to keep the baby....does this really sound EASY to you? Oh, and did your producers actually stop for one minute and think that maybe "that woman" who is struggling so hard has tried these options without letting her family know? Maybe those options didn't work for her either, and she didn't wish to share her heartache. What is your suggestion now? So, unless someone at this show miraculously became God, or you are willing to finance all of the 12.5 % of the population who is struggling with infertility regardless of THEIR choice, IVF, IUI, adoption, etc, then your idiotic suggestion of a show isn't going to help."

Although, this may make me sound like one of those "crazy infertiles" this show is directed too, I feel a bit better.