“How I Tried to Laugh at the Awkward Parts of Struggling to Conceive, Though There’s Nothing Funny About Anyone’s Lack of Access to Treatment”, by Hiag Avsharian

When I closed the door to my assigned room at the fertility clinic, making a movie was the last thing on my mind.

My wife and I were married a few years before “pulling the goalie,” which for us meant she stopped taking birth control pills. (The metaphor made total sense to hockey players like me.)  We knew it might take a few months, but like most couples we were expecting it to be easy.  However, after trying for 12 months and enduring sadness, frustration, stress, confusion, shame, loneliness, fear, and all the other emotions surrounding infertility, we went to a fertility clinic for help.

One morning I went in for “semen sample” day.  While having incredible respect and appreciation for everyone working at the clinic, I found the whole process to be absurdly funny. Having a woman lead you into a room with “magazines” and then having to go back to her desk just made me laugh.

There I was, doing my part, and everything was going according to plan. But a moment before “payload delivery,” the sample cup I had balanced on my stomach slipped off. The cup hit the tile floor — “plink plonk”— forcing me to roll off of the couch to grab it with my free hand before it bounced again. The “delivery” was already in the pipeline and nothing was stopping it at that point. Needless to say, floor scrapings were not a viable option, so a quick scramble on the floor ensued in order to take delivery while on my knees, using my head on the floor for balance.

The mission was ultimately accomplished, but what an utterly bizarre situation I had found myself in! The nurse at the desk asked, “Was there any spillage?”  I replied, “Um, well, uh, no…no spillage.” Better to keep it simple.

As comical as the whole “semen sample scramble” episode was to me, there was most definitely a dark side to my infertility journey.  I needed the laughs because I also carried the fear that it might be a reality that we couldn’t have children.

I had always known I wanted to have a family. I had decided that no matter what, if I was married to a wonderful woman and we had our own little family, everything else would just work itself out. Now, what if I couldn’t be a biological father, or if the two of us couldn’t have a biological child?

I had never considered adoption or any other kind of alternative family building option, because I had always assumed we could have our own kids.

Carrying around this fear with me was often distracting and sometimes even debilitating. It  gave me tremendous empathy for other people who have gone through this or are currently on this journey.

There was this ongoing yo-yo effect of seriousness and silliness throughout our treatment process.  My wife and I were once in a clinic room with a nurse looking over my semen sample report. They were sitting closer to each other, both looking at the report and at me. I felt like I was sitting under an interrogation light as the nurse read off the numbers and looked over at me. My wife and the nurse gave me encouraging smiles as I sort of smiled back–awkward!

I could laugh in relief when the results weren’t too demeaning, and ultimately, male-factor infertility was only a minor issue for us. I can only imagine the reality of what it must feel like to have significant male-factor infertility.

Not only are there mental and emotional costs of infertility, but wow, I was shocked at how expensive fertility treatment is. I was also surprised to learn that insurance didn’t cover any of it in my state of Michigan, but in some places in the world like, Jerusalem, it was all 100% covered! I learned that just a couple of states, and some countries, cover infertility treatments (aka ART – Assisted Reproductive Technology), but mostly couples are just on their own.

I was gainfully employed at the time and we spent a lot of money on treatment, but I wondered, how do lower-income couples pay for this?! The answer was, they don’t. Lower-income people that I talked to and read about simply can’t afford to have children through ART.  I felt then as I feel now that this is incredibly unfair and a grave injustice.

It moved me so much that I decided to write a movie screenplay about it. There were many inspirations, but the biggest was the injustice of lack of access to fertility treatment care that many couples face.  That disparity, and my profound sadness at the thought of it, became the engine that kept me going to write about the infertility journey in my film, “Pulling the Goalie.”

The short film is the story of a beer league hockey player’s struggle with infertility.  My goal with the film is to expand access to infertility care by personalizing the experience for a general audience, while honoring every path a couple may find themselves on or opt to take. I hope with awareness, fertility treatments will become more accessible and affordable with expanded insurance coverage.

My wife Ema and I eventually became the loving parents to Megan & Simon, both through IUI. I’m really a “business guy” and never saw myself as an advocate. But when I look at my children, I’m reminded of how much we struggled, how millions of others with infertility fight to have families, and how some don’t even get to take that journey.

It’s not right, and hopefully the more we  share these stories, the more normal it can become for people to have families, to reach their “goal,” with the support they need, however they need it.

Hiag Avsharian is a business professional, having served for 20 years as the president and co-owner of a 100-employee company. “Pulling the Goalie” is his first film, inspired by his family’s experience with infertility. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI, with his wife Ema, and their two children, Megan and Simon.