Comedian Heather McMahan’s New Netflix Special Tackles Infertility

When going through a hard time, laughter is often the best medicine, and for comedian Heather McMahan, laughter just so happens to be her specialty. So when she started crafting jokes around her tough infertility journey and sharing them with crowds, she soon found that they were a healing balm to not only her but others whose road to parenthood hasn’t been easy.

In her debut Netflix special Son I Never Had the beloved podcaster opens up about the highs and lows of trying to get pregnant after realizing no one else was talking about infertility. It’s her hope that anyone going through fertility issues “will just get a laugh about the way I talk about it, especially because it’s hard,” she told Today. Adding that by sharing all of the “humiliating” moments in her journey, she hopes to be able to make a heavy topic seem a little lighter.

McMahan’s own infertility journey started during the pandemic when she and her husband decided to do some family planning for the future. Expecting to easily “go ahead and get some embryos on ice," she was met with surprise when the doctor told her, ‘Heather, you have like no eggs. I mean, there’s like, you know, tumbleweeds down there.’"

It took McMahan a while to get over the initial shock. “You never think you’re gonna have problems getting pregnant because you spend your entire life trying not to get pregnant,” she said. Angry at what she believed to be a lack of education for young women around fertility, McMahan opens up about how strange trying to get pregnant can be after years of avoiding pregnancy.

“It’s always about the men’s health. Nobody tells you, ‘Hey, if you want to have babies or you want to build a family, these are the ways to look into your fertility at an earlier age.’ We have modern medicine for a reason.”

On the plus side, after months of IVF, shots and more, McMahan was finally able to harvest a one baby girl embryo. McMahan is a self-described realist and knows that, statistically, her solo baby girl embryo may not survive the implantation process. So, even with her busy tour schedule, she’s hoping to do another egg retrieval cycle to increase her options for motherhood. And she’s already thinking ahead to how she would want to raise her future children.

“As a parent it’s like you really have one job: make sure your kid isn’t a d—.,” she laughs. “Like, just make sure your kid isn’t a little a———. That’s the job. Right? You want them to be healthy and happy, but just make sure that they’re a kind person.”

While McMahan’s journey to motherhood may not be over yet, her insights into the difficult world of infertility have already brought joy and a little levity to many women across the world. You can watch McMahan’s new Netflix special out now on Netflix.com.