ABSTRACT
T he inability to conceive or to successfully carry a pregnancy to term is a heartbreaking loss for many individuals. Several factors contribute to the impact of this particular loss, ranging from social expectations and the construction of motherhood as a dening role for women in the context of a pronatalist society to the personal struggle and pain that many women experience in their private lives in their longing to hold a child after enduring painful and often humiliating treatments for infertility. Even with the rise of women who are able to obtain high levels of professional accomplishment, the role of mother still holds the ideal of identication with being feminine and complete for most women; thus, the inability to conceive is often seen as a loss of identity for a woman. For couples that are unable to have biological children, the losses often include their friends and family members, who cannot comprehend the depth of their pain and struggle and who readily move on in their lives with the children they have conceived without difculty. This chapter will focus on the unique aspects of the inability to conceive or to give birth to one’s biological child, the social context of infertility, and the psychological effects of undergoing medical treatment for infertility.
