On identifying counter-narratives of failed IVF

Karen Throsby's article, "Negotiating 'Normality,"' explores counter-narratives produced by British women (and men) whose quest for motherhood with IVF failed. Two points are made in this commentary. First, Throsby successfully shows how they simultaneously reflect and attempt to slightly reshape cultural narratives about IVF and reproduction. In both instances the women in her study could not live these stories. I argue that they also assume another dominant cultural narrative (the ideology of intensive mothering) accept the qualities of femininity contained in it, and "simply" want to claim those qualities without at the same time becoming mothers. Second, she does not show how they accomplish their gentle counter-narratives or how she participates in this task. I raise questions about the co-production of counter-narratives that emerge from the abbreviated texts in "Negotiating 'Normality"'.