난임, 유예된 모성실현의 사회적 맥락: 온라인 난임 커뮤니티를 통한 질적 연구

This research is a qualitative inquiry exploring the aspiration for biological motherhood of infertile women and the social background of assisted reproductive technology (ART) by analyzing posts on an online infertility community. Infertility not only causes problems with the reproductive function, but it is also recognized as a social stigma of not conforming to traditional gender identity and norms, thereby causing a crisis in the overall life of affected women. Infertile women often resort to ART as their final means to overcome infertility. While seeking information about ART, many women learn to interpret their bodies as being in a “hard to impregnate” state, as opposed to an “unable to impregnate” state, and they hope to re-enter the normal life-cycle by attempting to be pregnant. However, due to low successful pregnancy rates associated with ART, women repeatedly fail to become pregnant, which exacerbates their physical and psychological pain. Nevertheless, optimistic encouragement that they will eventually have a baby, in addition to stories of successful cases of other infertile women becoming pregnant, fuel their aspiration for realizing motherhood and motivate them to remain in the ART market. This study will contribute to the field by expanding the discussion of how a personal event like infertility can be understood in the sociocultural background.