ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways in which infertility is a condition that can compromise both individuals' and families' sense of well-being and the extent to which this varies according to different gendered expectations. It explores the ways interviewees relate to their desire for children and the matter of infertility as a departure from well-being, as it is described in terms of failure, disillusion, incapacity, burden, incompleteness and social stigma. The chapter argues that understandings of infertility, as well as the way this condition is perceived as affecting well-being are related to the socio-cultural context in which women and men live and act. It provides an analysis of interviews with women and men who wanted children but could not easily have them. Women focus on the social construction of the desire to have children, as something which produces 'incomplete' women and 'strong' men.
