The one with Phoebe’s uterus

If you’re in Team FRIENDS, you know the episode and you would have found it as funny as any other episode in that season. I first watched it at least 15 years ago. All these years later, I wonder why there wasn’t even a passing mention of what she (and Alice) physically went through in the lead up to embryo transfer in the next episode. If there could be an entire episode on labour, which every second show creates without any hesitation, then why wasn’t there anything about the multiple injections in the stomach and pessaries up the rectum each day? One could argue it is the classic, ‘outcome over everything else’ mindset, but someone somewhere ought to have talked about it!

I’m not doing anything as radical as carrying my brother’s kids. I am just trying to hope and make one of myself. 1 in 8 around the world find it impossible. Or 48 million couples in the world. It’s a staggering number. That people in my own generation have obsessively pestered me with that unsurprising, hideous question over and over feels just as staggering.

It has taken reason, resilience and a solid partner to just find out the realities of assistive medicine. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do wish it wasn’t such a hushed topic, that people didn’t ask intrusive questions, and those with healthy kids didn’t constantly complain about how difficult their lives are. Going through this experience feels akin to realising that the simple act of breathing that should come naturally to everyone doesn’t to some people.