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Rethinking the biological clock: Eleventh-hour moms, miracle moms and meanings of age-related infertility

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  • Friese, Carrie
  • Becker, Gay
  • Nachtigall, Robert D.

Abstract

Over the past generation, aging and female reproduction have been lodged within the gendered and gendering debates regarding women's involvement in the workforce and demographic shifts toward delayed parenting that culminate in discourses on the "biological clock". Technological solutions to the biological clock, specifically in vitro fertilization, have led to clinical attempts to assess "ovarian reserve", or qualitative and quantitative changes in the ovary that correlate with aging and with successful infertility treatment. Rupturing the longstanding historical connections between menstruation and female reproductive capacity by specifically focusing on the aging of a woman's eggs, the clinical designation of "diminished ovarian reserve" has come to imply that a woman has "old eggs". This is associated in practitioners' and patients' minds with the eclipse of a woman's reproductive potential and with hidden harbingers of menopause. In an ethnographic interview study of 79 couples in the US who conceived after using donor oocytes, we found that women voiced two different narratives that described their experience and attitudes when confronted with an apparent age-related decline in their fertility. The "eleventh-hour mom" narrative was voiced by women who initially tried to become pregnant with their own eggs and turned to donated oocytes as a second-choice option, whereas the "miracle mom" narrative was expressed by women who were generally older, some of whom had entered infertility treatment hoping to conceive with their own eggs, but some who knew from the outset that it was not going to be possible. Through their narratives women not only embodied and made meaningful "diminished ovarian reserve" in varying ways that connect with cultural, social, structural/organizational, symbolic and physical aspects of aging, they reproduced the socio-biological project of the biological clock, but rooted this social project in the metaphor of "old eggs" rather than menopause.

Suggested Citation

  • Friese, Carrie & Becker, Gay & Nachtigall, Robert D., 2006. "Rethinking the biological clock: Eleventh-hour moms, miracle moms and meanings of age-related infertility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1550-1560, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:63:y:2006:i:6:p:1550-1560
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Becker, Gay & Butler, Anneliese & Nachtigall, Robert D., 2005. "Resemblance talk: A challenge for parents whose children were conceived with donor gametes in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 1300-1309, September.
    2. McLean, Athena, 1990. "Contradictions in the social production of clinical knowledge: The case of schizophrenia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 969-985, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Janet Green & Philip Darbyshire & Anne Adams & Debra Jackson, 2015. "Desperately seeking parenthood: neonatal nurses reflect on parental anguish," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(13-14), pages 1885-1894, July.
    2. Campbell, Patricia, 2011. "Boundaries and risk: Media framing of assisted reproductive technologies and older mothers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 265-272, January.
    3. Degli Esposti, Sara & Pavone, Vincenzo, 2019. "Oocyte provision as a (quasi) social market: Insights from Spain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 234(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Krystal Wilkinson & Jennifer Tomlinson & Jean Gardiner, 2017. "Exploring the work–life challenges and dilemmas faced by managers and professionals who live alone," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(4), pages 640-656, August.

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