The "lived pain" experience: The case of women undergoing IVF treatments

 

 

Hilla Ha'elyon; Chen Gross

 

 

---

ABSTRACT

This research used the embodied approach to analyse the pain experiences of 25 heterosexually married Israeli-Jewish women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments for a first pregnancy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to allow the women to openly discuss issues concerning their perceptions of pain. Research findings show that the women's pain perceptions dictated two distinct categories of discourse. The first category of discourse surfaced in the accounts of 14 of the interviewees. Women belonging to this category expressed their willingness to "do everything for a child". These women insisted on silencing pain and considered it to be irrelevant. They refused to locate bodily pains at the centre of their experience, fearing that this would delay their goal of reproducing. The second discourse of pain emerged from the accounts of 11 interviewees. This discourse was associated with women's motivation to maintain an active dialogue with painful experiences. They obstinately sought to direct internal attentiveness to what was happening inside their bodies. This approach enabled them to define body boundaries and form an active negotiation with the authority treating their bodies. The research findings suggest that women who share the same socio- cultural environment (Israeli pronatalism) and physical circumstances (the inability to conceive) have varied and wide-ranging interpretations of pain. It seems that medical authorities can benefit the understanding of pain by providing new support resources to women undergoing IVF treatments.

---

 

 

“Full text available only in PDF format”

 

 

References

Amir, D., & Benjamin, O. (1997). Defining encounter: Who are the women entitled to join the Israeli collective? Women's Studies International Forum, 20(5-6), 639-651.         [ Links ]

Amit, Y. (2002). Why are women Sterile? In R. Ravitzky (Ed.), Read from Genesis (pp. 127-129). Tel Aviv: Hemed Books.         [ Links ]

Bendelow, G., & Williams, S. (1995). Transcending the dualisms: Towards a sociology of pain. Sociology of Health and Illness, 17(2), 65-139.         [ Links ]

Bendelow, G., & Williams, S. (1998). Emotions in social life. London: Routledge.         [ Links ]

Benjamin, O., & Ha'elyon, H. (2002). Rewriting fertilization: Trust, pain and exit points. Women's Studies International Forum, 25(6), 667-678.         [ Links ]

Birke, L. (1999). Feminism and the biological body. New-Jersey: Rutgers University Press.         [ Links ]

Birenbaum-Carmeli, D. (2004). Cheaper than a Newcomer: On the political economy of IVF in Israel. The Sociology of Health and Illness, 26(7), 897-924.         [ Links ]

Csordas, T. (1994). Embodiment and experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.         [ Links ]

De Mouson, J., Lancaster, P., Nygren, K. G., Sullivan, E., Zergers-Hochschild, F., Mansour, R., Ishihara, O., & Adamson, D. (2009). World collaborative report on assisted reproductive technology, 2002. Human Reproduction, 24(9), 2310-2320. doi:10.1093/humrep/dep098.         [ Links ]

Foucault, M. (1980). The history of sexuality. New-York: Vintage Press.         [ Links ]

Freund, P. (1990). The expressive body; A common ground for the sociology of emotions and health and illness. Sociology of Health and Illness, 12(4), 452-477.         [ Links ]

Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self identity: self and society in late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press.         [ Links ]

Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism theories of representations and difference. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.         [ Links ]

Grosz, E. (1999). Thinking the new. Ithaca: Cornell University.         [ Links ]

Ha'elyon, H. (2006). Enclosed garden: The experiences of Israeli women undergoing IVF. Haifa: Pardes.         [ Links ]

Hashiloni-Dolev, Y. (2006). Cultural Differences in Medical Risk Assessments during Genetic Prenatal Diagnosis: The Case of Sex Chromosome Anomalies in Israel and Germany. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 20(4), 469-486.         [ Links ]

ICMART (2009). World collaborative report on assisted reproductive technology, 2002. Human Reproduction, 24(9): 2310-2320. doi:10.1093/humrep/dep098        [ Links ]

Ivry, T., & Teman, E. (2008). Expectant Israeli fathers and the medicalized pregnancy: Ambivalent compliance and critical pragmatism. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 32(3), 358-85.         [ Links ]

Johnston, D., & Swanson, D. (2003). Invisible mothers: A content analysis of motherhood ideologies and myths in magazines. Sex Roles, 49, 21-30.         [ Links ]

Kahn, S. M. (2000). Reproducing Jews: A cultural account of assisted conception in Israel. New York: Duke University Press.         [ Links ]

Kirsty, H. (2006). Three million IVF babies born worldwide. Retrieved from http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_12772.asp        [ Links ]

Lyon, M. (1997). The material body: Social processes and emotion. Body and Society, 3(1), 83-101.         [ Links ]

Marshall, H. (1996). Our bodies ourselves: Why we should add old fashioned empirical phenomenology to the new theories of the body? Women's Studies International Forum, 19(3), 253-265.         [ Links ]

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and invisible. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.         [ Links ]

Miles, A. (1998). Women's bodies, women's selves. Body and Society, 4(3), 1-19.         [ Links ]

Morris, D. (1991). The Culture of Pain. California: University of California Press.         [ Links ]

Morris, D. (2001). Narrative, ethics and pain: thinking with stories. Narrative, 9(1), 55-77.         [ Links ]

Remennick, L. (2000). Childless in the land of imperative motherhood: Stigma and coping among infertile Israeli women. Sex Roles, 43(11-12), 821-841.         [ Links ]

Remennick, L. (2006). The quest after the perfect baby: Why do Israeli women seek prenatal genetic testing? Sociology of Health and Illness, 28(1), 21-53.         [ Links ]

Sacks, H. (1974). On the analyzability of stories by children. In R. Turner (Ed.), Ethnomethodology (pp. 216-232). Harmondsworth: Penguin.         [ Links ]

Shildrick, M. (1997). Leaky bodies and boundaries. London: Routledge.         [ Links ]

Thomas, S. P., & Johnson, M. (2000). A phenomenological study of chronic pain. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 22, 683-699.         [ Links ]

Williams, S. J. (2006). Medical sociology and the biological body: Where are we now and where do we go from here? Health, 10(1), 5-30.         [ Links ]

Young, I., M. (2005). On female body experiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.         [ Links ]