ABSTRACT
Dealing with unexpected infertility is always a major life-event, whether it comes as the result of ageing, an ectopic pregnancy, surgical intervention, or biochemical causes. This chapter addresses the emotional turmoil experienced if heterosexual partners repeatedly fail to become a mother and a father, when ready to do so. Childbearing may indeed seem 'incredible' yet the 'reasonable' nature of the desire to be a parent is echoed by the World Health Organization's charter recognising 'the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children'. Early identification with parents, siblings, and others encourage us to take for granted that our life-cycle awaits unfurling, a trajectory of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and beyond that, parenthood will follow if we so choose, perhaps even grandparenthood, too. Contemporary psychoanalytic theorising hopes to rescue gender from being treated as a single entity embedded in binary definitions.
