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filler@godaddy.com
Writer & Director - Hiag Avsharian
My Infertility Journey
My wife Ema and I were like most people I guess - we were super excited to start trying to have a baby. Even though we knew it might not happen right away, honestly I think we both expected it to happen right away because we were so excited and in many ways innocent with respect to the reality of getting pregnant generally and the fact that infertility is so common. After 12 months with no success, we consulted an infertility Doctor and ran through all of the tests.
For us the next steps were a series of medications for Ema and a series of visits by me to drop of sperm samples which created an interesting series of life experiences. After 2-3 IUIs we had success and were fortunate that Ema carried our first child Megan to term. After a long labor and some concern from the medical staff they decided to do a C-section and out came Megan! NOTE: We didn't have the name nailed down until about a day later. :)
My Screenwriting Journey
Shortly after our first child Megan was born, the story of PULLING THE GOALIE started to rattle around in my head. There were a lot of inspirations. First, PULLING THE GOALIE was already a term I was very familiar with from my beer league hockey but also as it refers to not using contraception to try and get pregnant. The metaphorical scene of a guy on the ice trying to shoot the puck in the net just struck me as really funny, especially when you see the three stages from innocent exuberance, to concern and doubt, to outright fear and anxiety.
Secondly, the costs involved with infertility treatments are no joke, and in Michigan they are not mandated. We were fortunate to be able to afford the IUIs, but even so I looked at the costs and I recall thinking it would cost $2,500 per month. I thought to myself, "how could low income people possibly afford this or IVF which is even more expensive?"
The thought that people would realize they were not wealthy enough to have kids seemed to me then, as it still does now, a tragic social injustice. Lastly, once the basic idea and story rooted in my head, and after I had chipped away at writing it, I knew it would be a lifelong regret if I didn't finish the screenplay. Finally, after literally 10+ years working on it off and on (mostly off), I finished the full length screenplay in early 2021.
The full length film has been adapted to a short film since that is all I can afford but also because it has the greatest chance of getting done.
