Tag Archives: Marc Bendavid

CBC Gem’s How to Buy a Baby delivers in Season 2

In the first season of How to Buy a Baby, viewers met Jane (Meghan Heffern) and Charlie (Marc Bendavid), a young couple struggling to get pregnant. From hormone injections to faulty testes and uterine walls, How to Buy a Baby opened the door to hilarity and much-needed openess about infertility.

Jane and Charlie are back for a second season—dropping on CBC Gem on August 23—tackling the next logical step in their journey: adoption.

“This is based on my own experiences and I wanted to portray things as authentically as I could,” says Wendy Litner, How to Buy a Baby‘s creator. “Because my husband and I moved on to adoption that seemed like the logical next step.” Litner—who has written for The Globe and Mail penned a blog for Today’s Parent about How to Buy a Baby.

“I really felt like I connected with Wendy and the subject matter,” Heffern says during a recent phone call. “And I really loved the idea of playing a normal woman. In some of the other roles I’ve had I’ve played sci-fi villains or very heightened versions of a normal person. It was exciting to play someone grounded in reality.”

In the first instalment of Season 2, Jane and Charlie are stressing over an upcoming visit from an adoption agency worker. But before that, Charlie runs through a questionaire they need to answer. Among the queries: will they accept a baby that was the result of a rape or incest? Once Stan (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll) arrives things escalate. He has his own questions and suggestions about how Jane and Charlie can improve their chances at adopting a baby, namely ensuring Christmas happens despite Charlie being Jewish. Outrageous? Yes. But, they are exactly the questions Litner and her husband were asked during their adoption process.

“I was actually shocked by the questions when we were filling out the questionnaire,” Litner recalls. “How often did we have sex? I mean, what is the right answer to that?! It was so jarring and they delve so deep into every aspect of your life.

“Although, you are getting a child, so I can understand why they want to make sure your electrical outlets are up to code.”

How to Buy a Baby is streaming on CBC Gem.

Image courtesy of LoCo Motion Pictures.

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CBC’s How to Buy a Baby injects humour into infertility

I never knew infertility could be so funny. Yet there I was, giggling as Jane begged Charlie to “just stick it in my…” What she was asking him to put in there was not what I’d expected, nor was it where I’d initially thought. And that made How to Buy a Baby so hilarious.

Created by Wendy Litner and starring Meghan Heffern (Wynonna Earp) as Jane and Marc Bendavid (Dark Matter) as her husband Charlie, all 10 episodes dropped Monday on CBC’s website. Litner—who has written for The Globe and Mail, Today’s Parent (read her story about How to Buy a Baby), has a blog and most recently served as story editor on The Beaverton—is on the advisory board of Fertility Matters Canada, providing information, support, awareness and education about infertility. And, with How to Buy a Baby, she also provides laughter.

With Jane and Charlie struggling to get pregnant, it only made sense they’d run into an old friend, Debbie, at a coffee shop in Episode 1. A friend with a newborn snuggled up tightly to her chest, professing that motherhood is “f—ing amazing.” Because, of course, success in life can only be marked by motherhood. The moment is there for a chuckle but then leads into that awkward discussion regarding when Jane and Charlie are going to have a child and the whole infertility thing is mentioned. Debbie suggests a juice cleanse will solve that because it worked for someone she knew. The scene spotlights just how well-meaning, but dunderheaded, some folks can be. Jane and Charlie don’t have any problems going into detail outlining their issues—his testicles and her uterine wall—to Debbie, before leaving.

Produced by LoCo Motion Pictures (My 90-Year-Old Roommate), How to Buy a Baby is able to show the silliness in what traditionally could be seen as sad. Charlie is in the middle of providing a semen sample when his mother shoots him a text and Jane worries she’s got an ugly vagina.

There are truly touching scenes too: in Episode 2, Jane outlines to Charlie’s mother the intricacies of in vitro fertilization. It’s less than a minute long—Charlie’s sister, Alley (Mr. D‘s Emma Hunter) ruins the moment—but it’s there and drives home a key point: open discussion about subjects like infertility needs to happen. We’re getting better at discussing mental health out in the open; let’s hope the rest of the body comes next.

Watch all 10 episodes of How to Buy a Baby now via CBC’s website.

Image courtesy of LoCo Motion Pictures.

 

 

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