ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 deals with the way stigma continues to shape couples’ experiences of both infertility and IVF and the disclosure practices which couples use in their family, social and work networks. Allan et al. (2019) found that both non-donor and donor couples described feelings of stigma around infertility, IVF, and the use of donor sperm in their small qualitative study in the South East of England. Current literature in the UK suggests that, as Chatjouli et al. (2017) argue, older cultural discourses about infertility remain influential. We show how the complex interweaving of influences which the couples used to mediate their positioning as new parents in the context of social beliefs about infertility which they held. This is similar to Thompson’s notion of ontological choreography. Experiences of non-donor couples are again illustrated as before.
