ABSTRACT
Rarely when reporting on qualitative data is one given the opportunity to present the entire content of multiple interviews. Usually, the researcher must summarize, organize, or give some context within which to place the interviewee’s words (Sandelowski 1998). In this chapter, the interviewees of this study tell their own stories in their own voices, although only partial content of each of the interviews is presented. Then, in Chapter 7, selected passages from the interviews are presented with the intent of identifying, illustrating, and illuminating the common themes and patterns that have become evident to the researcher. In this chapter, there is minimal interpretive and analytical intrusion (377), and the reader has the luxury of listening to the words of the interviewees and learning about their maternity leave experiences directly from these remarkable women. With very few exceptions, no content of the interviews presented in this chapter is repeated again in Chapter 7.
