Diagnosis of infertility

This book examines infertility both as a medically constructed condition and as a specific social status. The aim of the research was to discover the role infertility plays in an individual's biography within a society that highly values parenthood, yet at the same time is characterised by one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. The author was interested in how people adapt to a situation where their life plans clash with obstacles on both a physical and a societal level. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, the analysis of which is presented in four chapters. Each chapter deals with a different dimension of the experience of infertility and its treatment: the first is dedicated to the time and age aspects of infertility treatment, the second to the contact infertile individuals have with doctors and medicine as patients, the third explores gender differences in the response to infertility, and the fourth looks at the ways in which infertile couples make decisions about treatment and future parenthood.