Acknowledgements

Many persons have contributed to the progress of this book. First and foremost, my wholehearted thanks go those men and women who gave so freely of their time, who willingly relived old pain and examined new ideas so that I might learn something that would benefit others. Although I have changed all names and identifying characteristics of the families who participated, they know who they are. I am deeply grateful for their valuable contributions.

This book is based on research funded by the Academic Senate of the University of California, San Francisco, and by the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, "Gender and the Disruption of Life Course Structure," RO1 AG08973. This support was essential to the conduct of the research.

Without a doubt, my personal experience, as well as the research itself, has influenced the nature and direction of this book. My friendship with Kristine Grimes Bertelsen has been especially important. It is an uncommon experience for two friends to simultaneously undergo an unexpected life experience, such as infertility, together. Yet that is what happened to Kris and me. We have spent much of our long friendship exploring our identities and lives as women. This included, initially, our fertility and its ramifications for our lives. Later on, our infertility was superimposed on the larger issue. Her willingness to look unflinchingly at every aspect of this experience with me has contributed greatly to the insights I have had about the way women experience this entire phase of life.

Lynda Schmidt has also played a special role, significantly influencing my thinking on issues related to women, men, and relationships. She has been a source of continual inspiration in my own personal odyssey of self-discovery that has taken place as this book unfolded, as well as in my work.

Many thanks to Robert Nachtigall, my research partner in studying infertility, who has contributed greatly to my understanding of infertility and its medical treatment. I am also grateful to the research staff who contributed so much to these projects:

Edwina M. Newsom, project manager; Gary Cook, Jeff Harmon, Seline Szkupinski Quiroga, and Diane Tober, who conducted interviews; Lin Bentley, LaSonya Chatman, Susan Churka-Hyde, Leilani Cuizon-Canalita, Claire Cumings, and Norton Twite, who were involved in various aspects of interview transcription and manuscript production.

Two of my research partners, Sharon Kaufman and Robert Newcomer, have given me ongoing support. Not only did they carry on with our other research endeavors when I was preoccupied, they reviewed papers and proposals and gave me astute comments and suggestions. Robert Newcomer also made the resources of the Institute for Health and Aging, at the University of California, San Francisco, available to me. Without these resources, this book could not have been completed.

Many others have provided all kinds of encouragement in the fifteen years since I began this research. I would especially like to thank Robert Glass, Carl Levinson, Mary Martin, Gay Nadler, Lucile Newman, Marcia Ory, Carolyn Weiner, and Jane Sprague Zones. Lita Teran-Cummings helped to recruit volunteers for the research. I also wish to acknowledge and thank the organizations that helped to recruit participants for the second study: Catholic Charities Adoption Services, Northern California Resolve, and PACT—An Adoption Alliance.

It has been a pleasure to work on this book with Charlene Woodcock at the University of California Press.

I might have abandoned this project long ago had it not been for the enthusiastic support I have received from my friends, from experts in the field of infertility, and from my fellow social scientists. I am very grateful to all of them.

Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Roger Van Craeynest, who has gamely gone through these years of our lives with me. His willingness to tackle our infertility and its effects on our relationship, his tolerance when I made our private life a public matter, and his many anthropological insights about the cultural context in which men and women live out their lives have not only enriched the book, they have kept our relationship lively.