Infertility lamenters

Furthermore, just as ARTs can be both empowering and disempowering for infertile women, joining these biosocial worlds of support can also be Janus-faced. Many brokers, doctors, and husbands expressed concern about the amount of time women spent online. As we talked, Daniel, from Los Angeles, struggled slightly as he tried to articulate the complicated nature of these sites. He described the two sides of online forums: “There’s a lot of hope on there and advice on the forum, because it’s all a bunch of women wanting themselves and other women to succeed. There is that sort of negative pall that sort of hangs over the whole thing of people that tried it and it didn’t work out. That’s not something that I want to talk about.” Women who initially land upon websites of support may “lurk” before joining. A woman’s level of participation will ebb and flow as she moves along her journey. In her years of being a broker, Petra had become critical of the forums for being full of “too much estrogen,” and Jenny, though she championed the use of Google, characterized the women online as “lamenters.” Here, we note that women who participate in virtual communities walk a fine line and may face approbation if they participate too heavily. It is as if women are expected to continue to work hard, go online to seek information and resources, yet never wallow or succumb to the depressing side of infertility. There is a femininity/fertility police that is enforcing gender norms that urge women to maintain a semblance of hope for a family. Given the tidal nature of women’s participation, fertility threads will split, and some blogs fall into favor while others fizzle out. When I asked Petra of IVF Choices which sites she would recommend, she said, “It changes so often. Something that I found a few months ago is not there, and something else is not there. So I wouldn’t recommend a specific site to go to, but always try to do a fresh search.” Ultimately, it is through such blogs and support groups that women learn about reproductive travel. One husband joked that his wife had found out about reproductive travel on eBay, which highlights the global, consumer framework of fertility medicine. Once a woman hears about this phenomenon, she will try to learn more.