Liz Feldman created Dead to Me, Netflix’s new dark and twisty dramedy, during a tumultuous time: She was dealing with the sudden death of a cousin, a frustrating fertility journey, and turning 40. Here, she explains how all of that inspired a show about grief, loss, and friendship.

I’ve been trying to have a baby for six years. And I won’t save the worst for last: I haven’t been successful yet.

My fertility journey has felt more like an odyssey, or if I’m being really honest, a full-on Greek tragedy. There have been painful procedures, infections, and miscarriage. Just when I thought things might be looking up, a lab technician at my Fertility Clinic lost the one egg they were able to retrieve from me. Yes, you read that right. I made one egg and they lost it. And yes, you’re totally allowed to laugh. It was my eighth egg retrieval. I had to laugh too, because I was so tired of crying.

I have learned to look at the darkest moments in life and see the comic aura around them. It’s become more than a coping mechanism; it’s my ethos. And now it’s a TV show.

I created Dead To Me, a deep, dark, twisty dramedy, in the weeks following my fortieth birthday. Turning forty can be a real mind bender, especially if you’re on fertility hormones and trying to get pregnant for what feels like the 600th time. Staring down my own mortality while trying to create life put me in a pretty dark headspace.

And then, on the day of my fortieth birthday, my cousin David died unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was fifty. I absolutely adored David. He was the heart of our family, the life of every party, and a great dad to two sweet kids. And yes, you are totally allowed to cry. I am as I write this.

The day after David passed away, my best friend Sarah told me she was pregnant with her second child. I love Sarah madly, but I had to excuse myself to go cry in the bathroom. It’s not that I begrudged her luck, I was just so ready to have some of my own. That night, I flew to New York for David’s funeral.

The following day, I had lunch in Brooklyn with my other best friend, Kelly, who told me she was pregnant. This time I didn’t cry. Instead, I was filled with a weird kind of tingly hope. Maybe this is why it took so long for me to get pregnant—so Sarah, Kelly, and I could have our kids together! Of course! I was buoyed by this thought and reinvigorated. Life does have a way of working out, I thought, until the following day, when I got my period.

A week later, I pitched the beginnings of Dead To Me, a show about two women who meet in a grief support group. Jen (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini) have suffered immense loss, but they gain strength and comfort from their newfound friendship. The story, though not autobiographical, is deeply personal. The facts are made up. The feelings are real.

With Dead To Me, I have definitely experienced some incredible luck. I got to birth an idea and grow it into a show that I now get to share with the world, via Netflix. Of course, my luck didn’t come in the form I had hoped for, but life is full of twists and turns. Just ask my best friend Kelly. Tragically, five months into her pregnancy, she lost her baby. It was a devastating time. None of it made sense. Here was my beautiful, kind, wonderful friend experiencing a level of pain and loss she did not deserve. It was impossible not to be furious at the cruelty and relentlessness of life.

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