The maternal and paternal experience between sterility and procreation

The MAP experience involves, even if in an amplified way, fears, doubts, anxiety and a natural feeling of inadequacy which is present in any planned parenthood. Getting to know the “parental representations” and the parents’ depressive and anxious experience when conceiving with MAP helps us move away from the prejudice of presumed “omnipotence” of these couples. The results of the test and interviews with the MAP parents help us to understand how suffering caused by the narcissistic wound of sterility, and the subsequent exhausting and painful experience of MAP, may represent a more complex route, but also a deeper one when working towards parenthood. The facilities in the health service surrounding MAP should be carefully assessed and conceived paying particular attention to the transition to parenthood and to the follow-up of the child; the emotive experience of pregnancy may become an opportunity to work through the narcissistic wound of sterility both for mothers and fathers.