Law of Inverse Fertility: Difference between revisions

''The fertility of a couple is inversely proportional to their desire to have a child.''

In many cases the stress of trying to have a baby will suppress fertility, and, once the couple decides to adopt or give up, the stress disappears, and: hooplah! they have a baby! Sometimes it's ''after'' they went through the hassle of adopting, as if Mother Nature felt humorous one day. Many people believe this to be [[Truth in Television]], but in [[Real Life]], while infertile couples do sometime conceive after adopting, they also sometimes conceive if they don't adopt -- and at the same rate.

This is very old, involuntary infertility being found in the opening of a number of [[Fairy Tale|Fairy Tales]], before the birth of the main character, and just about required for the [[Wonder Child]]. Note that this law gets revoked during the [[Denouement]] for [[Babies Ever After]].

== Anime & Manga ==

== Comicbooks ==

* In the ''[[Green Arrow]]'' miniseries ''The Longbow Hunters'', Ollie tells Dinah he'd like to get married and have children. She says no, because their lives are too dangerous. A few years later she changes her mind...at which point they're informed that due to damage she sustained during ''Longbow Hunters'', she's not physically capable of having kids anymore.

* In ''[[Runaways]]'', Victor learns that his mother wanted a child but was infertile and unable to adopt because of her past as a drug mule. {{spoiler|She was so desperate that she ended up letting Ultron build Victor as a half robot/half human with her supplying the human genetic material.}}

* In ''[[Diary of a Mad Black Woman]]'', Helen ''wanted'' to have children with Charles, but had two miscarriages. Meanwhile, he had two unplanned children with his mistress.

* As noted below in the [[Western Animation]] section, the trope was played very straight with ''[[The Flintstones (Film)|The Flintstones]]'', in the film as well as the cartoon. The difference is that in the film, the Rubbles decide to adopt, and [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Fred empties his savings account to lend them the money so they can afford to do so]].

* ''[[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]]'', Queenie wants a child but can't have one. The only child she raises is Benjamin, who loves her and later says that Queenie is born to be a mother.

* Part of Bethany's backstory in ''[[Dogma]]'' is that she was married and she and her husband both wanted children very much. But then she had cancer and the cancer treatments left her infertile, so her husband left her. {{spoiler|The movie ends with her being impregnated supernaturally a la the Virgin Mary.}}

* On ''[[The West Wing]]'', we find out via flashbacks that Toby's wife Andi desperately wanted to have a baby, and they tried every fertility treatment under the sun. In the series timeline, they're divorced, but Andi becomes pregnant with Toby's twins -- and then rejects his proposal of remarriage, saying that he's "sad," "angry" and "not warm," and she's worried about the influence he would have on the kids. Oddly, we're never told whether she finally had a successful in vitro fertilization using his stowed-away sperm or they rekindled their relationship long enough to do it the old-fashioned way. This is a point of contention is the fanbase: one side insists that it's too much of a long shot for Andi to have become pregnant just by luck, after failing for all those years, while the other maintains that if those are really her conclusions about Toby's potential as a family man, she wouldn't have intentionally made him the father of her children.

* On ''[[The X-Files]]'', Scully is not only told she is infertile, but that she had her ova removed. While she had never given that much thought to having children before, she did after hearing that. An invitro attempt with Mulder failed, as did trying to adopt, and yet by the end of season seven Scully is pregnant by circumstances never fully explained. However, [[Word of God]] did confirm that Mulder is the father of Baby William.

* Happens on ''[[Martin]]''. His girlfriend Gina misses her period and [[Hilarity Ensues]] as they and their friends scramble about getting her tested for pregnancy and if they're ready for a baby. Just when Martin and Gina warm up to the idea of having a child, it turns out she wasn't pregnant after all.

* On ''[[Spartacus Blood and Sand (TV)|Spartacus: Blood and Sand]]'' and ''[[Spartacus Blood and Sand (TV)|Spartacus: Gods of the Arena]]'', Lucretia tries for years to provide her husband Batiatus with an heir, even resorting to adultery with one of his gladiators due to the belief that a Gaul's seed was extraordinarily potent. Despite regularly having sex with both men and undergoing a fertility ritual, she remains unable to conceive. {{spoiler|Until the end of season one. Not long afterwards, the Gaullish gladiator and probable father stabs her in the womb during a revolt.}}

** Addison cheats on her husband with Sloan, gets pregnant, aborts, and then when she tries to have a baby on her own finds out she's barren

** Cristina gets pregnant on accident, turns out to be ectopic and miscarries

== Music ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* Weird variant in the history of [[Forgotten Realms]] monarch Azoun of Cormyr: A red wizardess of Thay once used magic to seduce the king, apparently believing that their son could one day make a claim for the throne, stealing it from Azoun's legitimate daughters. Subverted in that, while she may well have succeeded in one try, Azoun had already sired so many illegitimate children in his bachelor-prince days that hers would have to get in line behind ''hundreds'' of older half-sibs. She may have gotten the son she wanted, but he won't be any use as a political pawn.

** And of course, because apparently every member of the Simpson family ''sans'' Maggie was slipping Manjula fertility drugs, they have octuplets.

* Also happened in ''[[Family Guy]]'', where Lois and Peter tried to have a fourth baby. Of course they had Stewie actively working against them, and eventually shrinking down to destroy every sperm in Peter's body. [[Fantastic Voyage Plot|Manually]]. {{spoiler|He meets a sperm he considers a worthy ally and abandons the plan, only for Peter and Lois to decide they actually don't want a fourth kid.}}

* A flashback episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'' reveals that prior to conceiving Bobby, Hank had been declared infertile due to a narrow urethra, which was exacerbated by his habitual uptightness. He and Peggy gave up on trying to have a baby and got a puppy (Ladybird) instead. Playing with the puppy was relaxing enough to counteract Hank's anatomical difficulties, and pregnancy ensued.

** Later, when Hank and Peggy are trying to have a second child, Hank's seventy-something father Cotton winds up having a child with his forty-something wife Didi. After the baby is born and both parents are neglecting him, Peggy even miserably alludes to the fact that she can't have a child while they somehow got to have a "beautiful child they don't even ''want.''" Becomes a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] when {{spoiler|the episode ends with Peggy rocking the baby to sleep with her toes, despite being in a full-body cast}}.

* ''[[Up]]''. Subtly implied in the opening montage of ''Up''. It's especially heartbreaking since the buildup has Carl and Ellie making a room for the baby. [[Word of God]] says it was a miscarriage that left Ellie unable to have more children. What we see is what little they could actually show/feel comfortable putting in a kid's movie.

* In Disney's ''[[Hercules (Disney)|Hercules]]'', the title character's adoptive human parents have prayed to the gods for years to bless them with a child, and they see Herc as the answer to that prayer.