A Look at Hollywood

Hang with me here while I give you a little background...

In case you didn't know this about us, we love movies. That may even be an understatement because we have quite the movie collection (approaching 600), and average watching about 5 movies per week. It's just one of our favorite "down time" activities that we enjoy spending together. Because we take our collection seriously, we keep lists of several things:

• Movie Library: Movies we already own
• The Wish List: Movies we want to own
  
• The Tryouts List: Movies that are out in theaters/on video that we'd like to see first (and then decide if it will make the wish list or not)
  
• Piqued Interest List: Movies that are not yet in theaters, but sound appealing (but in order to make it onto the tryouts list, they must pass our "content test," where we make movie-by-movie judgement calls after reading reviews, most often from kids-in-mind.)

I often fill out our Piqued Interest List by looking at upcoming releases on imdb. Well, today I came across a movie that is supposed to be coming to theaters in August 2012 called "The Odd Life of Timothy Green."

Will you judge me if I told you that the TRAILER made me cry? (And don't even get me started on The Vow or October Baby! If you have never heard of October Baby, go watch the trailer here.)




This of course is not a Christian movie, but I love that Hollywood is starting to expose infertility and the painful emotions behind it. Maybe I'm only noticing things like this for the first time, and it's always been this way, but for me it seems that infertility/miscarriages/adoption are taking a more forward seat in movie/tv plots.

Want Examples?

• Facing the Giants, as I previously blogged about
• The character Celia in The Help experienced multiple miscarriages
• Monica and Chandler on Friends were unable to conceive naturally, and eventually adopted
• Sun and Jin on Lost were unable to conceive off the island (as we learned in flashbacks)
• The movie Juno portrayed a teenager who was unexpectedly pregnant and chose to give it up for adoption to a couple who was unable to conceive
• Though we've never seen it, there was a movie Baby Mama about using a surrogate
• The opening story of Up showed that Carl & Ellie couldn't have children
• Dr. Cuddy on House was infertile and adopted a baby, in addition to other episodes that referred to infertility
• Even the movie Dreamer had a twist where the mare, Dreamer was infertile, so they decided to try racing her again (apparently it happens to horses too!)

I'm sure there are others not listed here! And it's not just plots in tv and movies...celebrities themselves are struggling. Of course, they have much higher salaries than most people and can afford to do numerous IVF's, but it's encouraging to me that they share their journey and painful emotions with the public.

Celebrities Who Have Struggled With Infertility:

• Nicole Kidman - used a surrogate to have her second child
• Kirstie Alley - suffered a miscarriage and eventually adopted her two children
• Mariah Carey - suffered miscarriages
• Halle Berry - said she saved nearly 35 negative pregnancy tests before she finally got a positive result
• Sarah Jessica Parker & Matthew Broderick - used a surrogate for their second and third children
• Celine Dion - struggled for 6 years with infertility and then had their first child via IVF. She went through another six rounds of IVF and a miscarriage before having twins next.
• Courtney Cox - I had no idea when I watched her character in Friends that she in reality was battling the real thing. She and David struggled with multiple miscarriages and finally conceived via IVF.
• Brooke Shields - she conceived with IVF but miscarried at 3 months, then went through six more IVFs before having her first child
• Angela Bassett - after 7 years of infertility and a failed IVF, they decided to use a surrogate
• Christie Brinkley - experienced three miscarriages including a failed IVF before having her third child
• Jane Seymour - went through three IVFs with the last being successful
• Emma Thompson - had her first child via IVF and later adopted a child
• Sherri Shepherd - two years of infertility until an IVF worked with twins, but she lost one of the twins via miscarriage
• Barbara Walters - adopted her daughter after suffering three miscarriages and being told that she was infertile
• Sharon Stone - suffered numerous miscarriages and eventually decided to adopt

Always remember that you are not alone. God is ALWAYS with you (Hebrews 13:5)!