Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-72).

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-135).

Thesis (M.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1988.

This study explored gender role conformity as a predictor of infertility-related distress and relational health in women and men undergoing treatment for infertility. Other factors that have been linked to infertility-related distress, including diagnosis type, treatment type, and insurance coverage were also explored. Study participants were comprised of 185 women and 147 men who had received a diagnosis of primary infertility and were undergoing medical treatment for infertility. Participants completed an online measure which included the following instruments: the Fertility Problem Inventory (FPI: Newton et al., 1999); the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory (CFNI: Mahalik et al., 2004); the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI: Mahalik et al., 2003); and the Relational Health Indices (RHI: Liang et al., 2001). Findings from the study demonstrate a significant relationship between gender role conformity and infertility-related distress for both men and women. Women reported significantly greater levels of infertility-related distress than did men. Biological sex was a stronger predictor of infertility-related distress than was gender role conformity for both men and women. No significant differences in distress scores were found for individuals grouped by diagnosis type, treatment type, or insurance coverage status were detected. When the couple was used as the unit of analysis, no differences were found between couples with congruent distress scores and incongruent distress scores. Clinical implications linking the study findings with individual and couple-based interventions, as well as ideas for future research, are discussed.

A Phenomenological Study into Infertility and the Assisted Technologies: USA and Jamaica Compared Infertility affects approximately 10-15% of all couples. This study explores the livedexperience of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in Jamaica and the United States based on a phenomenological qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 15 couples experiencing infertility in Jamaica and 15 couples in the United States. As with many small scale studies that explore issues of an extremely sensitive nature, the participants were recruited from the community through a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. The biopsychosocial model and postmodernism constituted the conceptual frameworks that guided this study. The factors contributing to infertility; the biopsychosocial consequences of infertility and medical treatment of infertility are described. Fertility, infertility and the assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) are examined from ethical, legal, religious, and feminist perspectives. Empirical research derived from in-depth personal narratives of participants are used to explore the ways infertility impacts life's goals, self-esteem, faith, marriage, social relationships, and religious and cultural experiences. The results of the study yielded a list of thirteen themes that show the similarities and differences between Jamaica and the United States in relation to the topic under investigation. The study concludes with recommendations for public policies to address infertility as a public health concern and for social work with individuals, couples and extended families affected by the experience of infertility. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

Infertile heterosexual couples comprise the majority of those pursuing parenthood via adoption. While research into the experience of adoptive parenthood has focused on adoptive mothers and couples, the research on either group has not fully captured the experience of adoptive fathers. The present study was aimed at understanding how men perceive adoption, and its pursuit, following failed infertility treatment. Sixteen established and prospective adoptive fathers were recruited to participate in individual semi-structured interviews. Narrative analysis was used to evaluate the men’s meaning-making process related to fatherhood. The men told stories which indicated they both believed and countered western culture’s master narrative that fatherhood is constructed via genetic reproduction. I elaborate on the implications of these narratives for understanding the experience of adoptive fatherhood in specific, and fatherhood in general. Following this, recommendations are made for infertility treatment practitioners, adoption service providers, and future researchers based on these implications.

Background: The theory of framing suggests that the media have the ability to influence how the public thinks about issues (Nelson, Oxley & Clawson, 1997; Chong & Druckman, 2007), by influencing what definitions, causal attributions, moral evaluations, and treatment recommendation the public considers applicable to an issue (Entman, 1993; Tewksbury & Scheufele, 2009). The theory of framing has been supported in studies of media representations of a variety of social issues. With particular relevance to this thesis, framing studies have suggested that health news often portrays the essence of health issues as highly alarming, with few efficacious treatment or coping options (Chang, 2012). The social issue this thesis focuses on specifically is infertility. Study 1: In Study 1, a content analysis is utilized to examine how Canadian print news frames infertility. One-hundred and fifty-seven Canadian print news articles that contained the key word “infertility” in the year 2012 were analyzed. Two independent coders read the articles, and coded each article using a predetermined coding strategy (Chang, 2012) for if/how infertility was framed with respect to: prevalence; need for alarm; severity; vulnerability; need for alertness; means of coping; causes; and possible solutions. Just over one-half of the articles employed alarm frames (n=80), and the vast majority of these met the criteria for categorization as high alarm (96%). The most commonly cited cause of infertility was delayed childbearing (41% of articles) and the most frequently presented way to cope with infertility was in vitro fertilization (IVF; 46% of articles). Infertility was most often constructed as a women’s issue. Study 2: Study 2 build on Study 1 by examining the influence that high alarm framing strategies in the presentation of infertility have on news consumer reactions to, and knowledge of, infertility issues. One hundred and thirty-nine male and female undergraduate students were randomly assigned to read news articles focusing on infertility judged to employ either high alarm framing strategies (high alarm condition, n=65) or low alarm framing strategies (low alarm condition, n=66). Participants in each condition read the assigned news articles and subsequently completed a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire included measures of: fear of infertility, perceived severity of infertility, perceived vulnerability to infertility, worry about infertility, prevention efficacy, coping efficacy, and knowledge about infertility. The participants in the high alarm condition evidenced higher levels of perceived vulnerability to infertility (p = .04), and marginally higher levels of worry about infertility (p = .075) than those in the low alarm condition. In contrast, participants in the low alarm condition relayed higher levels of infertility related knowledge than those in the high alarm condition (p= .001). Discussion: Canadian print news portrays infertility as a serious, a prevalent, an alarming and predominantly a women’s disease, and presents IVF as the principal means of coping. This partial depiction of infertility may not be promoting informed reproductive decision-making. Print news portrayal of infertility using high alarm framing strategies may induce higher worry about infertility and heightened levels of perceived personal vulnerability to infertility, while neglecting to relay pertinent knowledge about infertility. Implications for the societal understanding of infertility and the potential repercussions for informed reproductive decision-making are discussed.

Infertile heterosexual couples comprise the majority of those pursuing parenthood via adoption. While research into the experience of adoptive parenthood has focused on adoptive mothers and couples, the research on either group has not fully captured the experience of adoptive fathers. The present study was aimed at understanding how men perceive adoption, and its pursuit, following failed infertility treatment. Sixteen established and prospective adoptive fathers were recruited to participate in individual semi-structured interviews. Narrative analysis was used to evaluate the men’s meaning-making process related to fatherhood. The men told stories which indicated they both believed and countered western culture’s master narrative that fatherhood is constructed via genetic reproduction. I elaborate on the implications of these narratives for understanding the experience of adoptive fatherhood in specific, and fatherhood in general. Following this, recommendations are made for infertility treatment practitioners, adoption service providers, and future researchers based on these implications.

Motherhood is one of the most enduring and consequential rites of passage to adult femininity for women. Indeed "motherhood changes everything" (Nelson 2009, p. 3, Fox 2009). However, not all women have access to motherhood. What happens then when women do not have access to the gender ideal of motherhood or to the cultural spaces that define it? How do women deal with this exclusion? In the course of this research I answer these two questions through an examination of women’s blogging in the online infertility community. Women in the online infertility community characterize their fertility challenges as unfair and unjust, wherein their expressions of desire to become mothers are made in direct relation to, and in comparison with, the women around them who are on their way to becoming mothers (i.e., pregnant) or have already become mothers. In characterizing their experience as an injustice, I argue that women begin to lay claim to motherhood as an entitlement. They do so by drawing on, engaging with, and seeking out a multiplicity of cultural and scientific discourses associated with motherhood and women’s bodies. Through an examination of these discourses, I argue that the pursuit of motherhood is a journey that is relational and comparative, and one that happens in a single-gender, homo-social environment. Conceptualizing motherhood as a gendered entitlement, rather than a gender identity achievement allows us to recognize that women’s relationality and sociality are central to how women negotiate gender norms and expectations more broadly. In the face of infertility women in the online community express incredulity about the prospect of never having a biological child of their own and become industrious in navigating their circumstances. Their industrious responses help us locate infertility as a gendered penalty in the larger context of misfortune, which is often overlooked by sociologists.

Motherhood is one of the most enduring and consequential rites of passage to adult femininity for women. Indeed "motherhood changes everything" (Nelson 2009, p. 3, Fox 2009). However, not all women have access to motherhood. What happens then when women do not have access to the gender ideal of motherhood or to the cultural spaces that define it? How do women deal with this exclusion? In the course of this research I answer these two questions through an examination of women’s blogging in the online infertility community. Women in the online infertility community characterize their fertility challenges as unfair and unjust, wherein their expressions of desire to become mothers are made in direct relation to, and in comparison with, the women around them who are on their way to becoming mothers (i.e., pregnant) or have already become mothers. In characterizing their experience as an injustice, I argue that women begin to lay claim to motherhood as an entitlement. They do so by drawing on, engaging with, and seeking out a multiplicity of cultural and scientific discourses associated with motherhood and women’s bodies. Through an examination of these discourses, I argue that the pursuit of motherhood is a journey that is relational and comparative, and one that happens in a single-gender, homo-social environment. Conceptualizing motherhood as a gendered entitlement, rather than a gender identity achievement allows us to recognize that women’s relationality and sociality are central to how women negotiate gender norms and expectations more broadly. In the face of infertility women in the online community express incredulity about the prospect of never having a biological child of their own and become industrious in navigating their circumstances. Their industrious responses help us locate infertility as a gendered penalty in the larger context of misfortune, which is often overlooked by sociologists.