The Narratives of Women Who Received Infertility Treatment

The Choice of a Life as a "Woman Without Children"

Abstract

Although great progress has been made in assisted reproductive technologies, women suffering from infertility still face both great hopes and cruel disappointment. It is still difficult to produce a child using infertility treatments. If the infertility treatment does not lead to the birth of a child, the patient has to decide whether to continue. Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine women who decided to remain childless after unsuccessful infertility treatments. This study sought to clarify the process by which they accepted their lives as childless women and the meaning of their experiences of infertility treatments. Their narratives concerning the infertility experience were divided into three periods: "early", "intensive", and "terminal". These did not follow successively, but were diverse. The results revealed four meanings of infertility treatments: "expansion of a sense of acceptance", "change in values", "change in the meaning of infertility treatment", and "generativity". After stopping treatment, they overcame their infertility through "socialization". From the viewpoint of life-span development, their narratives should be considered to have positive meaning and be one dimension of their adult development.