Reframing as recourse: How women approach and initiate the end of fertility treatment

Abstract

Hopeful parents facing infertility dedicate significant sums of money, not to mention time, energy, and their own bodies, in the pursuit of biological parenthood via assisted reproductive technology (ART). Yet because the success rate of ART varies depending on a range of factors and resources remain finite, many undergoing treatment will not manage to biologically conceive. How do people who do not conceive with ART come to terms with this reality and the possibility that they may need to walk away from future treatments? Supplementing prior research that explores why women end treatment and what makes it difficult, this study draws upon 23 semi-structured, in-depth interviews to examine how women diagnosed with infertility consider and/or initiate discontinuation of treatment aimed at biological reproduction. I find that women employ three core reframing strategies as they approach the end of treatment: broadening their anticipatory future, adjusting their investment logic, and recentering and decentering the self. These rhetorical techniques not only illuminate the evolving interpretive work that undergirds the process of discontinuation, but also constitute a key mechanism facilitating the ending of treatment—linking cognition with social action and shedding light on the mechanics of decision reversals. Moreover, the practice of reframing challenges the pervasive assumption that discontinuation is wholly or chiefly disempowering to women.