TY - JOUR

T1 - “No One Sends You Flowers”

T2 - Social Norms and Patients’ Emotional Journey Within Fertility Treatment

AU - Böcker, Julia

AU - Jakoby, Nina

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 by the author(s), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - Patients undergoing fertility treatment, such as IVF, experience a range of emotions—hope, disappointment, grief, anxiety, jealousy, guilt, and anger. Through a sociology of emotions lens, we trace the emotional journey of patients in fertility treatment in Switzerland to understand subjects’ experiences with medically assisted reproduction (MAR), and to highlight how societal and cultural norms and expectations shape the way they use and emotionally manage (failed) fertility treatments. The theoretical background is grounded in the notion of feeling rules (Hochschild, 1983) and associated concepts such as disenfranchised grief (Doka, 2002). Methodologically, the article is based on a qualitative interview study conducted with affected women in Switzerland (LoMAR) and a quantitative analysis of the first wave of CHARLS, a nationwide longitudinal study. Linking qualitative and quantitative data allows us to show the significance of occurring emotions as well as a deeper understanding of particularly strong emotions felt during (failed) treatment cycles that the research participants have disclosed in the interviews. Further, we argue that fertility treatment itself contributes to producing what we call “layers of loss,” a cumulation of multiple losses experienced.

AB - Patients undergoing fertility treatment, such as IVF, experience a range of emotions—hope, disappointment, grief, anxiety, jealousy, guilt, and anger. Through a sociology of emotions lens, we trace the emotional journey of patients in fertility treatment in Switzerland to understand subjects’ experiences with medically assisted reproduction (MAR), and to highlight how societal and cultural norms and expectations shape the way they use and emotionally manage (failed) fertility treatments. The theoretical background is grounded in the notion of feeling rules (Hochschild, 1983) and associated concepts such as disenfranchised grief (Doka, 2002). Methodologically, the article is based on a qualitative interview study conducted with affected women in Switzerland (LoMAR) and a quantitative analysis of the first wave of CHARLS, a nationwide longitudinal study. Linking qualitative and quantitative data allows us to show the significance of occurring emotions as well as a deeper understanding of particularly strong emotions felt during (failed) treatment cycles that the research participants have disclosed in the interviews. Further, we argue that fertility treatment itself contributes to producing what we call “layers of loss,” a cumulation of multiple losses experienced.

KW - emotion

KW - feeling rules

KW - grief

KW - infertility

KW - IVF

KW - medically assisted reproduction

KW - narrative interviews

KW - reproductive failure

KW - reproductive loss

KW - Sociology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105022780496&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.17645/si.10421

DO - 10.17645/si.10421

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:105022780496

VL - 13

JO - Social Inclusion

JF - Social Inclusion

SN - 2183-2803

M1 - 10421

ER -