Abstract
In many societies, parenthood is one of the individual’s central identities and most salient roles. Most people expect to become parents whenever they are ready, not anticipating any difficulty in achieving this goal, perhaps due to unawareness that fertility problems are increasingly common nowadays or due to reliance on the “magic” of fertility treatments. In any case, difficulty conceiving generally arouses distress, anxiety, and feelings of loss, failure, and pain. Thus, while fertility treatment is aimed at overcoming the physiological problem of infertility, it typically entails coping with a lengthy process that is challenging and stressful not only physically, but mentally as well. Even the early phase of fertility treatment, which comes on the heels of a history of failure to conceive or to bring a pregnancy to term, is characterized by a high level of uncertainty and implies a baseline level of stress. Moreover, studies show that individuals may experience pregnancy after fertility treatment as more stressful than those who conceived spontaneously. Interestingly however, many studies show no evidence of differences in various aspects of parenting following fertility treatment. This chapter examines the experience of infertility at different stages in the journey to becoming a parent, with special emphasis on the beginning of fertility treatment, and looks at diverse contributors to both positive and negative outcomes. It reviews recent literature and presents the complexity of the bigger picture.
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Skvirsky, V., Taubman – Ben-Ari, O. (2019). In Pursuit of Parenthood: The Highs and Lows of Fertility Treatment. In: Taubman – Ben-Ari, O. (eds) Pathways and Barriers to Parenthood. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24864-2_3
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