Infertility and Intimacy in an Online Community, 1st ed. 2019 Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life Series

This book explores an online support group for women who are infertile. Offering a close-up view of the women?s identities and emotions as they navigate the ?roller-coaster? world of infertility, a range of questions are addressed: How do the women seek support? How do they offer support to one another? How are intimacies produced in the online space? Through narrative analysis of online journals and posts, the authors examine the impact of infertility on women?s perceptions of their bodies, their struggles with medical professionals, on their relationships with family and friends, and the challenges that a diagnosis of infertility presents to couples.

Infertility and Intimacy in an Online Community will appeal to social scientists, students from a range of health science disciplines, counsellors and health professionals, and women and men who are dealing with infertility.  

Paulina Billett is Lecturer in Sociology at La Trobe University, Australia. Her current research centres on the experiences of women and explores issues of identity formation and lived experience.

Anne-Maree Sawyer is Lecturer in Sociology at La Trobe University, Australia. Her current research focuses on mental health policy and practice, emotion management and the micro-politics of care, and women’s narratives in retirement.

Explores the human aspect of the infertility experience

Offers academics, students and practitioners a resource with which to understand the emotional and social impacts of infertility and its treatment

Seeks to show that infertility goes beyond a set of technological processes, but involves a struggle to redefine identity outside the traditional parameters of fertility and motherhood