Table Of ContentPALGRAVE MACMILLAN STUDIES IN
FAMILY AND INTIMATE LIFE
Infertility and
Intimacy
in an Online
Community
Paulina Billett · Anne-Maree Sawyer
Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family
and Intimate Life
Series Editors
Graham Allan
Keele University
Keele, UK
Lynn Jamieson
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK
David H.J. Morgan
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
‘The Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life series is
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The remit of the Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate
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focusing broadly on the sociological exploration of intimate relationships
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partnership, marriage, parenting, domestic arrangements, kinship, demo-
graphic change, intergenerational ties, life course transitions, step-
families, gay and lesbian relationships, lone-parent households, and also
non- familial intimate relationships such as friendships and includes
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Paulina Billett • Anne-Maree Sawyer
Infertility and
Intimacy in an Online
Community
Paulina Billett Anne-Maree Sawyer
La Trobe University La Trobe University
Melbourne, Australia Melbourne, Australia
Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life
ISBN 978-1-137-44980-1 ISBN 978-1-137-44981-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44981-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953326
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Macmillan Publishers
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Acknowledgements
To all the remarkable women who we met through this journey: without
you, this book would have been impossible. Thank you for the trust you
have placed in us to share your stories with the rest of the world. Your
strength, courage and resilience are deeply inspiring.
This book is dedicated to you.
v
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Paulina Billett
2 The Changing Face of Society: Intimacy and Support in
the Online World 29
Anne-Maree Sawyer
3 Finding Support in the Online World 63
Paulina Billett
4 A Glance in the Mirror: Women’s Reflections on Their
Emotions, Bodies and Selves 85
Anne-Maree Sawyer
5 Relationships in a Fertile World: Negotiating Alliances and
the “Pregnant Other” 121
Anne-Maree Sawyer
vii
viii Contents
6 Partnering the Infertile: The Impact of Infertility on
Women’s Spousal Relationships 145
Paulina Billett
7 Looking Back, Moving Forward 167
Paulina Billett and Anne-Maree Sawyer
Appendix A: Codes Used in Analysis of Journals and Posts 185
Appendix B: Common Abbreviations Used on Stronger
Together Site 191
References 195
Index 209
1
Introduction
Paulina Billett
Journey to the Other Side
I am sure many people are curious as to what drove us to write this book.
Aside from a strong academic interest in the lives of women, there is also
a deep personal motivation for us to undertake this task. In truth, we
come from two very different places; one of us is childless by choice,
while the other has battled with infertility since her early 30 having
undergone several in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments and two miscar-
riages. Usually these two sides do not find much common ground, often
regarding each other from across the “fertility trenches” with suspicious
eyes. Yet, in reality, these two positions as childless women, in a society
that venerates motherhood, share more commonalities than could have
been expected.
From comparing our own stories, we learned that fertility and mother-
hood are neither a certainty nor a natural desire but, instead, a deeply
P. Billett (*)
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s) 2019 1
P. Billett, A.-M. Sawyer, Infertility and Intimacy in an Online Community,
Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44981-8_1
2 P. Billett
personal struggle. We both found that the experience of not having chil-
dren deeply affects the ways we see ourselves and how others see us. We
realised that often our childlessness comes as a bit of a shock to those who
wrongly assume that well-educated women in their 40s and 50s would
surely have had the good “sense” to reproduce. We have also come to
realise that the stereotype of woman’s destiny equals motherhood is still a
strong narrative of western society and that the normative force of this
narrative has, to some extent, coloured much of our personal adult female
lives. We have often doubted our decisions and second guessed ourselves;
we have struggled with the labels placed on childless women and have at
times been deeply shocked by what others feel is their right to comment
about what is believed to be a very personal condition.
In my case, there were two main occurrences which triggered the desire
to write this book. The first was a good friend, who sought to comfort me
after my first devastating miscarriage by stating that I should not be wor-
ried as, after all, “smart women tend to have less children in the first
place”; the second was a well-meaning older student of mine who, in no
uncertain terms, told me that I should consider having kids now “as you
know dear you don’t have forever to make these decisions”.
Understandably both these assertions rocked me to the core. Suddenly
I began to see myself as others saw me, as somehow unnatural, defective
and perhaps a little selfish. This coupled with my own sense of disap-
pointment and the inevitable insecurity, which unsuccessful IVF treat-
ment and miscarriages seem to produce, got me thinking about how
infertility affects women at a personal level—how this disease profoundly
changes our biographies and sense of self at the deepest of levels. I began
paying closer attention to the experiences being described by my infertile
“sisters” on our online support group, and soon a pattern began to emerge.
Infertility is a life altering experience, one that changes us so deeply, that
even the safe arrival of children can never hope to erase. Furthermore, I
became deeply conscious that many of those dealing with infertility found
little comfort or understanding in “the real world” and instead found
solace with others also struggling in online support groups, forging deep
friendships that have spanned both the real and virtual worlds.
The stories which we relate in this book attest to this. By following the
journals and posts written by the women over a period of six years, we
