another book review

When I first tried to find out why I wasn't getting pregnant, we were told it was unexplained. I had all the right plumbing and hormones. Time went by. Then they decided our diagnosis was male factor, sometimes my husband's sperm count is very low, sometimes it's just lowish. He went to the man-doctor who said no varicocele one time, yes varicocele the other time. Whatever. Not a solution for us. My man has contributed much in his ongoing hot affair with the plastic cup but that was it. I won't bore you with the list of everything, but I have taken oral drugs, injectibles, have had my cervix poked through at least 11 times, have probably had a gazillion ultrasounds, etc. This despite there being nothing wrong with me. They eventually found a polyp but that can't explain 3 ½ years of infertility.

I am a feminist – this whole business struck me as extremely sexist. Why attack me and my poor cervix? Why is ALL of the high-tech stuff focused on MY body? and why do I continue to go along with it?

So here's another book review. Don't be scared by the title, it's a very intellectual book and the depressing parts are not about failure but have to do with feminism and identity (and perhaps the author's use of words that make me feel tired, "liminal" "material-discursive" "normative" "discourses of gender," etc.). Anyhow…

When IVF Fails: Feminism, infertility and the negotiation of normality by Karen Throsby

This is a British book by a sociologist which caught my eye. Her basic premise is that IVF represents the meeting of nature and technology. When it works, nature is helped. However, when it doesn't work is basically not discussed, seen as the woman's fault, framed as baby consumerism, and that is when the meeting of nature and technology gets very problematic. The first IVF baby was by no means the first IVF attempt, I didn't know that. It took a lot of tries. Even the term IVF is a misnomer in her analysis since it is only about "fertilization." Which as we all know is a key component but fertilization ≠ baby in hand. She writes: "the term IVF, in centering on the moment of fertilisation, fails to even hint at the full process of engaging with the technology" (11).

Throsby writes: "The image is one of the natural order restored and rests heavily on the assumption of the naturalness of reproduction, particularly for women, and the understanding of science as progressive and capable of comprehending and controlling human reproduction." (2). But what happens to that natural order when there is no baby? That's why she chose to interview couples for whom IVF had "failed" in one way or another.

I liked the author's own definition of infertility "the active but frustrated desire for a biologically related child" (14). When couples choose to stop IVF they are not removing the desire, they are just changing their actions. Infertility as desire never goes away. However, by having gone through IVF, couples can prove to society that they are normal, that they do indeed have the desire for children and have done everything they can. She presents it as a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. I feel that is still very much how people react – I want children (socially acceptable female behavior), I am over 35 and desperately want children or am a lesbian who wants children (socially questioned female behavior). Our desires as women are thus always secondary to gender or social norms.

It's a long and wordy book but the key arguments are very interesting to me. Her discussions of finances and adoption are coming out of a British context where the NHS exists and where, according to her, domestic adoptions are rare and difficult (I didn't know that).

Throsby's conclusion is that IVF is a form of women's work and should be seen as such. It is not just about fertilization or the embryo. It is about women's bodies yet the woman's body disappears from the entire discourse. She analyzes fertility clinic brochures which always juxtapose cute baby – nature - with white lab coats - technology.

Basically, her conclusion is that this whole process will continue to be very, very hard on women as long as we are entrenched in the gender stereotypes that govern the entire discourse surrounding reproduction. I, for one, don't see this changing AT ALL in the US in our current political climate where embryo rights are far more important than women's rights but one can dream of the day when society will change.

I think she's on the right track – I would like to see a version of this in layman's terms or in the popular press. Her points are excellent.

P.S. I just looked up the author and see she has written a lot on the topic - I've got to read this one!..."'Vials, ampoules and a bucketful of syringes': the experience of the self-administration of hormonal drugs in IVF" Karen Throsby (2002) Feminist Review 72: 62-77