ABSTRACT
The public preoccupation with age-related infertility (ARI) focuses sharp attention on the salience of reproductive control and shifting boundaries between public and private. Since the 2001 “Protect your Fertility” campaign sponsored by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and the publication of Sylvia Hewlett’s (2002) Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children, procreation once again resounds as the subject of talk shows, autobiographical accounts, and the evening news. Widespread interest with ARI was generated in April of 2002 when the cover of Time magazine posed a naked baby on a piled-high inbox and asked “Babies vs. Careers-Which Should Come First for Women Who Want Both?” The accompanying article (Gibbs, 2002) chronicled Hewlett’s “creeping
nonchoice” narrative-women who focus on their careers and wait until it is too late to conceive often experience the despair of ARI.
