![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Laura Ellingson and two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback. Bethany Johnson thanks her partner for his unfailing support.
Notes
1. There is disagreement about age-related fertility statistics. Twenge (Citation2013) argued that some studies inflate the risk. In contrast, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (Citation2012) reported that age is a major factor in infertility over the age of 30 and then a more significant factor after 35.
2. Twilight Sleep is an obstetric intervention during which a laboring woman enters a semiconscious state via injection of scopolamine and a narcotic such as morphine. This drug cocktail, if successful, erases the mother’s memory of labor and birth. Our research focuses on the ways the women’s movement in Manhattan articulated the need for the procedure in the technical sphere of medicine, as well as how media outlets in Brooklyn framed the issue for upper-class individuals (Johnson & Quinlan, Citation2015, in press).
3. We recruited through an acupuncturist’s office that specializes in fertility treatment.
4. The stigma is complex here as well—while infertile women are stigmatized, so are those choosing donated egg and sperm, those who choose to adopt (or those that choose a donated egg and/or sperm over adoption, etc.), and those who seek surrogacy. Whichever path a couple takes toward expanding their family seems open for public debate and unsolicited advice and comment. Even fertile couples must navigate a host of expectations and opinions on the “right” time to choose to have children.