If you didn’t know this already, Giuliana and Bill have their own reality show and they’ve been recently chronicling their most recent IVF attempt. Giuliana Rancic is the host of E! News and her husband Bill gained fame when he was the winner of The Apprentice. 
The couple has been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 years. Their first IVF attempt was in March 2010 and they sadly miscarried at 8 weeks of pregnancy. They just completed their second cycle.
This is what I think we can all learn from the show:
1. This show demonstrates that even a very wealthy couple with money to afford 2 IVF cycles may still have a hard time conceiving.
2. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, how many people you have rooting for you, how many house calls your Fertility Doc makes, conceiving is still a struggle.
3. Even if you have a phenomenal doc, you don’t always have success in your first IVF cycle.
The reality show is not what an IVF cycle is like for most patients. Most patients don’t require the 63 shots she claims she has to take. My patients take approximately 10 shots all in the skin of their abdomen during an IVF cycle.
Giuliana was reportedly taking “muscle relaxers” for a couple days around her IVF procedures and this has prompted many patients calling my office for the same muscle relaxers she took. We routinely give patients a Valium prior to embryo transfer to relax the uterus and that is likely what she was referring to but obviously the general public doesn’t know that.
I have had patients fearful about making the decision to start IVF because they recently saw the episode where Giuliana called an ambulance because of abdominal pain she was having during her IVF cycle. In all the years I’ve been taking care of fertility patients, I’ve never had a patient need an ambulance (you’d have to have seen this episode to know what I’m talking about). It is my opinion that this was likely done to generate higher ratings for the episode.
I’m glad this couple is being open and honest about their struggles. Many of us cannot relate to the high profile lives they lead but their struggle is no different than the struggle of many of my patients. In a February 2010 episode of the View, Giuliana shared her struggle with gaining weight. Whoopi Gholdberg interjected, “You know what, you want to have a baby, you need to prepare your body for that other person who’s going to be there. And there’s no buts. If you want a baby, this is what you have to do. So you have to make that decision.” I think many patients of mine can relate to how she must have felt when Whoopi basically told her that her struggle was her fault because she isn’t gaining weight. Many of my patients hear the same things from friends and family, “if only you work less, if only you went on vacation, if only you lost weight, if only you weren’t so stressed.” Giuliana deals with the very public comments gracefully. If only the solution is as easy as just gaining weight. Hopefully she will achieve her goal very soon.
As an IVF patient, I can tell you that there is some misinformation in this post. For example, many patients take multiple 2-3 or more medications by injection daily over their stim cycle. Some split up doses over morning and evening times. Plus trigger shots. If you’re over 40, expect that a good doctor will have you taking far more than 10 injections. Know that, the shots get easier, and it’s not that bad.