Revising the plot:

Autobiographical narratives after infertility

Maggie Kirkman PhD MAPS

Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society
La Trobe University

215 Franklin Street (First Floor)
Melbourne 3000
Australia

Email: M.Kirkman@latrobe.edu.au

Fax: +61 3 5426 1587

Presented at

The International Conference of the Association for Qualitative Research:

"Issues of Rigour in Qualitative Research"

Melbourne, Australia: 6-10 July 1999

ABSTRACT

This paper reports aspects of a qualitative analysis of the narratives of infertility told by 31 Australian women. Whether a woman decides to use reproductive technology as a means of achieving motherhood, or whether she decides to confront childlessness directly, an infertile woman is likely to encounter demands, implicit and explicit, to replot her life. Whether or not she becomes a mother, an infertile woman may have a dramatically different life to live from the one she constructed in expectation. The infertile woman who endures long ordeals for the sake of her quest for a child yet remains childless may merely have postponed the task of revising her life story. Meanwhile, her life is lived in the subjunctive mode. In this paper, I consider what is revealed by women as they confront the need to develop new narratives for and about themselves, focusing on women who have chosen to accept the challenge. Qualitative research on narrative can incorporate sudden or gradual changes of direction and explanation; it can comprehend revision of the past as well as of the present and the future. Adopting the metaphor of narrative allows a researcher to accommodate the complexities of people's reflections upon and interpretations of the vicissitudes of their lives.

INTRODUCTION

The failure of a woman easily to bring to fruition her identity as a mother disrupts both her life and her sense of self (Kirkman, 1997, ch. 4). Whether a woman decides to use reproductive technology as a means of achieving motherhood, or whether she decides to confront childlessness directly, an infertile woman is likely to encounter demands, implicit and explicit, to replot her life. Whether or not she becomes a mother, an infertile woman may have a dramatically different life to live from the one she constructed in expectation. The infertile woman who endures long ordeals for the sake of her quest, particularly the ordeal of assisted reproductive technology (Kirkman & Rosenthal, 1999), yet remains childless, may merely have postponed the task of revising her life story. In this paper, I consider what is revealed by some women who are infertile as they confront the need to fashion new narratives for and about themselves.

NARRATIVE

The theory of narrative on which my work is based arises from the premise that our lives are not lived passively: We actively attempt to understand, to interpret, and to explain our lives. The way in which our lives are understood shapes the life already lived and the life to come, as we make decisions that are consistent with the plot—or plots—of our lives. No single story can comprehend the complexity of one person’s life. No one plot can adequately explain the many ambiguities of life. Each life is understood through multiple layers of stories, perhaps linked by a larger explanatory plot.

Following Ricoeur (eg. 1980), I take plot to be that narrative device which confers order, sequence, and meaning on a collection of otherwise isolated events. In the absence of emplotment, our lives appear to be little more than haphazard collections of disconnected events. As we give meaning to our lives, so we define who we are, through what Jerome Bruner has called narrative identity (Bruner, 1987, 1994).

Our interpretation of life provides a context for experience: We live according to this explanatory plot. Narratives, including autobiographical narratives, are at their most powerful and dramatic when dealing with what Bruner described as "the vicissitudes of intention" (Bruner, 1986; p. 17). It is at these points, in particular, that revision (or the refusal to revise) is the most noticeable.

If we accept that our lives are constituted through narrative, not merely described by narrative—that is, if we accept narrative as the very structure of life—we can then comprehend the profound challenge confronting a person whose identity, narratively constituted, has been disrupted. This is what confronts a woman whose identity is that of a mother, but who discovers that she cannot fulfil that identity by giving birth to a child.

The narratives of infertility told to me described women who had from childhood been telling themselves stories about their lives which included motherhood. They came to understand themselves as women who would be mothers, and made decisions about the present and the future which were appropriate to latent mothers. In other words, each had a narrative identity as a mother. Infertility came as an unexpected event which must somehow be accommodated within the plot, or trigger a revision of the plot.

METHOD

Participants

Women were sought to participate in the research who described themselves as infertile or as a member of an infertile couple. The first 31 volunteers were selected. Their ages ranged from 28 to 74 and their education from incomplete secondary school to PhD. They stated a variety of causes for their infertility, including female, male, unknown, and multiple causes. Nineteen women had no children when first interviewed; the other 12 women had become mothers naturally, by adoption, or with the help of various assisted reproductive technologies.

Each woman was interviewed in the State of Victoria, Australia, where all but one of the women were living. (The exception was a woman who was visiting from interstate.) During the three years of the research (1994 to 1997), I remained in contact with the women through correspondence and telephone calls, as well as the occasional meeting. The continuing contact enabled the people who had told their autobiographical narratives to guide the way in which the events of their lives and their opinions were interpreted. It also enabled me to witness the process of revision which took place in some of the narratives. (For a discussion of narratives that were not revised, see Kirkman, 1999, February.) Pseudonyms have been allocated to all the women.

Negotiating the Narratives

The interviews were fully transcribed. Coherent narratives were derived from these by condensing the transcripts from an average of nearly 40 pages to about eight pages. The interviewer's comments and queries were omitted along with bits of conversation not relevant to infertility or involuntary childlessness. Because informal conversations and written documents operate under different conventions, hesitations, false starts, some repetitive fillers, and obvious grammatical slips were removed. I did not want women to reject their stories because they seemed too rough. The distinctive flavour of each woman’s speech was retained.

Each woman was sent two copies of the draft of her own narrative, one to keep and one to return. They were asked to correct any errors, particularly of meaning and emphasis, and to bring the story up to date. All 31 women approved their narratives. Some made no alterations; most made only minor corrections or added recent information. The set of adjusted narratives was distributed to all the women. The women's comments on these and other communications were included in the data.

There were several reasons for creating these narratives instead of relying solely on the transcripts. I was committed to encouraging the continued involvement of the participants in the research, and wanted each woman's account to be one she could accept and one that she could share with others. I wanted each participant to read all the narratives, to comment on them, and to use them for reflecting upon her own narrative. It also seemed the most appropriate way to ensure the validity of the data; to ensure that these were stories that the women were prepared to own.

Undoubtedly, the account given by each woman is only one of a range of possible narratives she could have constructed. Nevertheless, it is a version which was significant to her and which she found acceptable for the period of the research. All quotations in this paper are taken from the women’s narratives and their letters to me; each woman has given permission for these quotations to be used.

DISCUSSION

The women were at various stages of their infertility stories. This statement is deliberately, perhaps inescapably, ambiguous, and refers both to the lives they were living and the narratives through which their lives were understood. Some women had completed their infertility story, with or without children, and some were discovered with an unfinished story in progress. Some women had revised their narrative beyond infertility. For a few, infertility was too recently discovered for an alternative to have been considered. Others had tried and failed to revise (Kirkman, 1999, February). Women who were still living their narrative of infertility were those who had no sense that their story of infertility had ended. Some were hopeful of a happy ending in the future (whilst also fearing failure); others had no hope of either happiness or an ending.

I will first discuss the notion of living in the subjunctive mode as a way of understanding the need to juggle a future based on hope, and alternative futures in case the hope is not fulfilled. This can give rise to a common experience of infertility: that life is on hold. I will then describe women reaching the point of deciding to revise their autobiographical narratives. The rest of the paper will be devoted to discussing the struggle to maintain a revised narrative, focussing on the experiences of a few women.

Living in the Subjunctive Mode

Pamela was one of those who tried to balance the endings she envisaged. She said: "You've got to be realistic, but on the other hand, you hope as well." Nola was hopeful of eventually adopting, but was taking steps to ensure that her life would not be empty, should she be unsuccessful, by studying and maintaining an interesting job. This trafficking in possibilities has been described by Jerome Bruner (1986) as living in the subjunctive mode. (The Oxford Dictionary defines the subjunctive mode in grammar as dealing with a contingent or hypothetical event.)

Byron Good (1994; Good & Good, 1994) applied this concept to people who are chronically ill. He found that those who are in the midst of their story, and who still hope for a resolution, tend to have multiple plots for what is happening to them and what might yet happen: They emplot contingent or hypothetical events; they subjunctivise. Chronically ill people who accept their condition, or who have given up hope, tend not to subjunctivise. In the same way, infertile women who were still living their story were either hopeful and subjunctivising, or were without hope. (Those who had accepted infertility may still have had minor subjunctive themes, as we will see later in the paper.)

Elaine was overtly attempting to organise her narrative around a variety of possible outcomes: natural pregnancy, success on IVF in the first or subsequent cycles, and accepting being the mother of only one (autistic) child. She wrote:

I still hoped, before I actually go as far as IVF, that I would fall naturally, even up until about late last year. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen, and I've got to accept that. ... I'm not going to be one who's going to go in [to IVF] and say, "Well I'm going to achieve success on my first cycle". In fact I'm saying to my husband that I don't expect to succeed. Obviously we hope! ... But I'm well aware that if we don't succeed that somewhere down the track I might have to draw the line and say, "Enough. I've got to close that chapter of my life and move on".

Marion's experience of infertility was longer than Elaine's, and she had thought herself close to resolution. However, Marion had not quite repressed all hope, and was contemplating a final cycle of IVF, in the belief that she could also reconcile herself to childlessness. She, too, was living in the subjunctive mode. Subjunctivising may be seen to contribute to the possibility of revision, because it implies the maintenance of alternative plots. On the other hand, it may also retard progress in the narrative by contributing to the feeling that life is on hold.

Experiencing Life on Hold

Our vision of the future affects our present life and identity. If the goals of the envisaged future are clear and seem achievable, it is straightforward to do or be what is appropriate to those goals. However, infertile women who are living in the subjunctive mode, hoping to become pregnant or to adopt children but fearing that they may never do so, find it difficult to know consistently which emplotment of the future should have greater influence on the present. The tendency is to change as little as possible, not to take steps which would undermine hope for a child. Committing oneself to a responsible job, for example, would seem to rule out the feasibility of soon becoming pregnant. This accounts for the experience of so many infertile women who feel that their life is on hold. (The issue arises not only in this group; similar descriptions of life on hold have been made by, for example, Sandelowski, Harris, & Holditch-Davis, 1991; Siebel & Taymor, 1982.)

It was common to hear women say that they had taken jobs for which they were over-qualified, or had turned down promotion, or had stuck with a job they disliked, all because they hoped to be pregnant soon. Retarding one's career for the expected maximum of three or so months before pregnancy is an act of happy expectation, a trivial interlude. When this interlude has stretched to years it seems that life is no longer being lived.

Wendy had not wanted to commit herself to anything that would be affected by a baby, and said, "Life had been totally on hold for about three years; ... I felt like we couldn't plan anything". It was Susan who summed up what other women had said: "Always the fact that I was going to have children came in to what I chose". These statements are about more than 'life on hold' in the present; they speak of years of making choices based on the narrative identity of motherhood.

Other women had given up hope of children. They were not living in the subjunctive mode; life did not hold a range of possibilities; yet their story of infertility had not ended. These women were in the midst of a story to which they could not envisage a satisfactory conclusion. Louise is the most obvious example of hopelessness. Her attempt to bring about unambiguous finality by suicide had failed, as had the complicated plot of gestation of a child by her sister. At the end of the three years, Louise could not imagine what came next. She could not subjunctivise, because there was no alternative but to continue without children.

However, Zoe demonstrated that what follows the loss of hope for children need not be life-destroying hopelessness. In her interview and subsequent letters, Zoe told of a long period of grieving, of feeling that her life was on hold, of living in the subjunctive mode while she wondered about various plots and possibilities; and then of beginning to see an end to her story of infertility and the introduction of a new plot without children. Time brought change. It was not steady nor always progressive, but it did entail the hint of a new self and a new life.

Revising the Autobiographical Narrative

Zoe was one of the women who made clear statements suggesting that the time had come to revise at least her predictive autobiographical narrative. She had thought, "I can't go on for much longer, dragging myself through this sort of stuff". Similarly, Karen, as she put it, "realised that I had to get on with the rest of my life".

There seems to come a point where all the concentration and effort required to overcome an insurmountable obstacle in the plot begins to seem futile, or even destructive. That 'point' may be somewhat blunt, extended over a long time, or it may be sharply focused on a particular incident. Una's decision to take the path to adoption instead of pregnancy had a long history but finally sprang from one encounter:

I'd just had enough! I felt as though my life had to take another course. ... I also remember my last shot [at IVF]. ... I just thought, "I don't want to go like this!" You know, "There is more to life than this".

For some women, the necessity was to revise the story of the life already lived. Geraldine said, "I've tried to reframe things so that I can see some benefits in it". Others tried to develop an alternative narrative to motherhood so that, if necessary, they had a future already planned, with appropriate groundwork laid in the present. Nola said:

Because of what's going to happen, in the sense that if we're going to adopt, I will either study full-time or work part-time, so I've got that option in the future. So if it doesn't happen, then I'll still continue to do what I want to do. ... Because it can take two years down the track, and I don't want to sit here waiting for it to happen.

Nola knew that keeping her life on hold would not advance the plot of her life nor prepare her for a future as a non-mother.

When I use the expression revising the autobiographical narrative, it’s not an elaborate synonym for making decisions. I’m arguing for more than "a decision" about what action to take next. Revising implies having to reinterpret the life already lived, the goals and directions of one's life, and, fundamentally, the understanding of who one is.

Even if what is changed about the future is only the means for achieving the same goal (such as pursuing adoption rather than pregnancy), it still demands a restructuring of the understanding of the self. If the life that has gone before is not to seem pointless, it must be reinterpreted so that it can be understood as contributing in some way to the new understanding of the future. When you have spent years, may be 10 or more, having frequent, invasive, expensive, and time-consuming attempts to have a baby, and you remain childless, it is a challenge to one's narrative skills to reinterpret those actions in any light other than complete failure to achieve the desired goal. Those women who have done so must be admired.

Successfully Revising the Autobiographical Narrative

Ann is one woman who reached a satisfactory understanding of the life she had already lived. She began to revise her narrative at that pivotal point when the necessity for a different future became obvious to her:

When I was going through all the tests and things, I used to look at the babies and think, "Oh, I wish I could have a baby." But then it was just incredible: This one day that I'd made up my mind that it wasn't for me, things did change. I loved them for what they were, not because I couldn't have them.

Since then, Ann has continued to emplot her life as working out well in spite—or even because—of involuntary childlessness. She continued,

I can see now what my role in life has been. ... About two years ago, a couple of young people knocked on our door one night and asked us if we'd be parent couple for a youth group. And Antony said, "I think the reason why we weren't given children is: the good Lord has called us to take on this role". It's a very demanding role ... that we're both enjoying very much. ... I think if you had children, you couldn't devote the time that we have to devote to it. It's certainly something that has enriched our lives because we haven't had children.

Fiona also interpreted her life to her own advantage. Her narrative suggests that, even though infertility can not be changed, one may be able to change the experience of it by choosing a transforming plot. She was aware of other possible means of telling her story, and said:

I always think that I've had an exciting, lovely life; but if I want to really analyse my life, maybe it's not so exciting, maybe it's not so wonderful! I don't have kids, I've had cancer [of the kidney] and all that. I don't focus it on that sore point. I always think I'm really lucky, I had a wonderful childhood, and when I've focused on it, my mother was always very ill, so I had to give her injections. That's what other children remember about my life. But I was always spoilt, I always had everything, I travelled and did everything.

Jenny is also aware that she has interpreted her life to her own advantage. She wrote: "Am I bending the situation to suit my own needs—probably, but, gosh, it makes me feel better." She had written to tell me about two of her friends who are infertile. One had adopted a baby, which Jenny heard with "genuine delight". The other was bitter at the waste of three years devoted to fertility treatment. Jenny went on:

So why am I telling you all this? Well it struck me that I was so content with my own decision, and that at the end of all these other women's trying to conceive and being unsuccessful, they still go through a grieving, and feeling-a-failure phase, whereas I now feel I am "voluntary" childless, and never went that one step further.

Jenny had come to understand her past anew as part of coming to terms with infertility and devising a new future.

When Ingrid was first interviewed, she was in the process of revising her narrative of the future. She and her husband had recently been considering IVF once again, but:

we decided we'd think about it a bit; we're child-free. We're going sell the shop and go and travel and do all the things all the people with children can't do. ... All of a sudden I felt relief. ... It's just all in your attitude, isn't it? You can enjoy being child-free! I used to feel threatened because I'm different; somehow now I'm pleased that I'm different. I think I've somehow grown stronger in myself and I'm not sure why or how or what did it. ... It's hard to see your future, isn't it? It's always been just a blank for me. Actually, I used to feel I bobbed along on the current. And just was buffeted with whatever was happening, and now I feel I've got more control. I just want to go and explore and see what there is. ... I'm not sure of this, but I don't want to get pregnant now! And if I did, I think I wouldn't like it!

However, maintaining a new plot requires constant vigilance against further unsettling vicissitudes. Ten months later, Ingrid wrote:

The whole issue is very emotional for me. I keep trying to be 'nice' & adult about it all, but every now and then—especially when other things in my life don't seem to work out—& when I'm low—I get upset all over again. ... I wonder if I'll ever be 'over' it—or if I'll always feel some loss. ... We're still sure of our decision not to have IVF. But when Ian's bored, or just not busy, he gets down. And lately he's been asking—What's it all for anyway? (Life? The financial struggle? Whatever). So I feel that lack again. Many people answer that with—For the children—the future. I sat all night with my girlfriend in Melbourne while she laboured. A beautiful little girl born at about 7am. ... I felt very glad it was her and not me. I've also not got in touch in the couple of months since—& I think I've hurt her & perhaps she doesn't understand why I keep away. This is a difficult thing to discuss—I feel selfish—like a fraud—as if I ought to care more for her than for myself. But I also understand that it's self-preservation. One can only stand to be hurt, to a point. Well, it's been a bit of a harrowing experience, looking at it all again—so many pregnant women & new Mums have walked past [my shop], it's unbelievable!—probably lots of others, but I didn't notice them!

The determination to rewrite her story to one of being child-free remains, but Ingrid is still vulnerable to the pain inflicted by living in the world of mothers and babies. Her expectations of herself are high.

Another letter, six months later, revealed the confusion engendered by the recommendation that Ingrid should have a hysterectomy:

Yes—I sold the shop. ... We went camping & fishing for a week or so (I caught a beauty!). ... I've done a computer course, & joined the gym. But I'm starting to feel even more purposeless. And less enthusiastic. Perhaps the shop was a good thing—helped to prop me up. ... Last week I collapsed in pain, & Ian rushed me to Casualty. ... Of course they recommend a hysterectomy—as soon as possible. ... I have had chronic pain for years—and it can only be a relief. Yet I cried and cried. Bitterly. Sure, I said great we're child-free—life can be fun. But now there's no chance at all, of having children. As [my doctor] put it—you think you've coped—then it's challenged again. All the old feelings well up again—and the resentments. Mostly when I'm alone, or with Ian. When other people are around me I can laugh and joke. ... I know this reads very disorderly—but I'm not really fluctuating—I feel two ways—opposite—at the same time. I guess I'll come to grips with this new challenge—and in six months may be really grateful (as well as sad.)

Even when Ingrid had developed a story of freedom from children, the finality of the hysterectomy has exposed a lingering subjunctive world where a surprise pregnancy was possible. Each new vicissitude entails a further reassessment of life and self, with other factors to consider.

Like Ingrid, Nola had found that constant vigilance was required in order to maintain the new plot of one's life. She wrote to me after reading the narratives of the other women:

Reading the transcripts brought back many sad and painful memories that I thought I had conquered. I don't think anyone ever gets over being infertile, all you ever get used to is the acceptance of the fact and move on with your life.

The experiences of Nola and Ingrid demonstrate the multiple plots with which we live, and the struggle required to maintain, as dominant, the plot which helps us best to live our lives. Alternative plots and sub-themes keep interrupting the preferred narrative.

Zoe voiced her heartfelt agreement with Nola's understanding of the persistence of infertility, even when the plot has been revised. However, well before she read that statement, and even before she knew that I was interested in the concept of rewriting the life narrative, Zoe had sent me a reassessment of her life which amounted to a conscious attempt to rewrite her life story. I quote from that document in detail because it raises important issues which appear to influence success or failure in rewriting after infertility. The preamble said that the document:

took some time to write as I did a lot of thinking in between writing different bits. My husband found it very interesting when I showed it to him for the first time, today. ... I must say that I am very pleased with the positive progress he & I have both made.

Zoe then summarised her history of infertility:

It is now seven years since I stopped taking the pill in anticipation of starting a family. Now married for nearly fifteen years, I'm sure that we would have succeeded in having children had we chosen to start a family earlier in our marriage. However, that wasn't to be and I don't regret that we chose to hold off from starting a family. ... My desire to have children was as strong as any woman interviewed but I have moved beyond that now. My pain and grief ... was real and ongoing. The emotional pain of my miscarriage was unbearable and seemed never ending.

Zoe wrote of visiting her brother overseas seven years before, a trip she described as "the beginning of my journey, as on my return my husband and I were going to start a family". She was reassessing her life four months after visiting him again, when she found him "looking very grey, thin and terribly serious" with the strain of caring for his children on his own. Like Fiona, Zoe interpreted these vicissitudes as lessons in life:

Life is tough at times and we all have to go through tough times and come to terms with them whether we like it or not. We grow from these experiences. ...

For a while there I needed to have a major goal. This goal was to complete a series of four long distance bicycle rides in a club of world-wide recognition. ... The first time I tried this two and a half years ago, I trained hard and completed three rides, then my nephew was killed in a car accident which was devastating. I started the last ride of the series (600 km) but pulled out, I couldn't handle it, the stress had been too much.

I gave it a rest for twelve months then trained hard and attempted the series again early in 1995. I completed several rides but once again pulled out. I began to realise that I was punishing myself because I wasn't successful as a mother and therefore had to prove my worth in another area. I wasn't really enjoying these tough rides of 300 km and 400 km. I don't need to do this to myself I began to realise.

"It is okay to be childfree", I have frequently told myself. Society as a whole needs to also recognise this and refrain from putting so much pressure on young couples. People need to realise that there are other pleasures in life and other roads to be taken. This way of thinking, I hasten to add, does not necessarily come easily (one could write an essay just on this—conditioning, our upbringing and observations as a child, stereotypes, etc!) ... I have learnt that having goals can be a good thing to have, but they need to be realistic and enjoyable and you need to understand that sometimes there will be disappointments. I have learnt (I hope) not to be too hard on myself. ...

I have now moved on from the infertility support group which I see as a positive step forward. I still keep in touch with friends I have made through this group. Interesting to note that these women I keep in touch with have also decided to move on from the group, also feeling that they don't need it any more. We feel that the group was a fantastic help for us when we needed it and we hope that it continues to exist to be of help to other women needing support.

A stumbling block I foresee being when my parents die and possibly having the feeling of being alone and lost. Having no one to pass on family history and belongings is a strange thought. I feel quite uneasy that I haven't written a will but then I get stuck as to what I want done with all my belongings.

On a more positive note, I look forward in the future to doing lots of travelling and enjoying the simple outdoor pleasures of cycling, walking and cross-country skiing. There are positives in being childfree!

These undercurrents of ambiguity surfaced even more strongly after Zoe had read a paper I had written and distributed among the women. I will quote from a letter Zoe wrote only three months after her revised narrative:

The final paragraph [of the paper] described exactly how I felt after reading this document.

I couldn't agree more with your comment that "the self-as-mother exists before any children are planned or conceived" and Rosemary's comment, "we are not only dealing with the death of our child, but the death of a whole lifestyle". Yes, this is so true, and oh boy, a major change in our way of thinking and planning has to take place before even beginning to come to terms with infertility, or more to the point, accepting it and moving on. Rosemary's further comment on the impact on her confidence in herself & belief in herself, orderliness of life having gone for ever is very interesting. I can relate to this, & find myself very unsettled at times & having difficulty making decisions. ... I can easily get distracted & at the end of the day, wonder where the day has gone & feel annoyed with myself for not doing some sewing or gardening etc.!

I would dearly love to break this rut/routine & get back on track, but as the years go by it doesn't really change. (Tomorrow ... will be six years since my miscarriage.)

These women—Zoe, Nola, Ingrid, Ann, Fiona, and Jenny—are among those who have made successful attempts to revise the narratives of their lives. It is clear that success does not preclude suddenly finding oneself living in the wrong plot from time to time. It is also important to realise that revision does not erase infertility. Infertility, even in successful revision, remains an ineradicable part of the self. The rewritten infertile woman has incorporated infertility within a larger view of herself, has interpreted her past as making a valuable contribution to her self, and sees a future with a glimmer of hope, even without children.

CONCLUSION

Infertility is a complex vicissitude which women tend to experience rather like Tolstoy's unhappy families: in their own way. It threatens the integrity of the self and the continuity of one's life story. Paul Ricoeur asserted that it is not possible to become the author of one’s own life (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 32). That is, it may not be possible to write our own narratives de novo. Things happen or fail to happen to us. But we can interpret the vicissitudes of our life in order to find meaning in our past, purpose in our present, and hope in our future. When our identity is challenged, such as by involuntary childlessness, some of us may choose to construct a new identity, others may act in order to maintain a consistent identity.

I will conclude by pointing out that the theory and method of narrative have allowed me, as researcher, to think in the subjunctive mode and to encompass levels of uncertainty both in the way that other people understand themselves and in the way that I interpreted their narratives. Encouraging women to tell stories about what infertility has meant to them has brought many factors into consideration, both shared and idiosyncratic, and not only those variables that a researcher assesses as significant and measurable. It has also allowed individual life stories to maintain their individuality. In traditional research, single voices are subsumed under a composite chorus, with those outside the modal pattern dismissed as extreme. Using narratives, the usual 'subject' of research, investigated by an all-knowing researcher, can be the 'I' and 'me' of her own story.

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