Laughing in the face of infertility – how Trying hits a nerve

The new Apple TV+ show about a couple who desperately want a child captures brilliantly the desolation of what it feels like with no kids on the horizon, writes Charlotte Cripps

Rafe Spall as Jason and Esther Smith as Nikki in the painfully funny comedy 'Trying' on Apple TV+ (Apple TV+)

There’s a scene in Apple TV+’s new comedy Trying that hammers home the emotional toll of infertility. London couple Jason (Rafe Spall) and Nikki (Esther Smith), who are desperate for a baby, are out on a sunny walk in Hampstead Heath. Nikki spots a man on his phone ignoring his kids and marches over to him screaming. “They are tiny little miracles!” she shouts, before throwing his phone in the pond. “Talk to your children!” That’s when I laughed out loud.

I laughed not just because it turns out they aren’t even his kids, but because I related to her total frustration. Watching the show, which is painfully funny but compassionate, I was instantly taken back to the desperation of wanting a baby and the nightmare of IVF. I know only too well what failed attempts feel like; Nikki’s just done an NHS IVF cycle and cried over a negative pregnancy test.

Any person who has been through infertility understands how overwrought, hypersensitive, and crazy you feel in the quest to have kids, just like Nikki does. To see somebody seemingly taking their children for granted when you are struggling to have one is like a red rag to a bull.