Birthing a mother: the surrogate body and the pregnant self

Elly Teman

2010

141 pages out of 295

The language feels charged and judgemental. Less than the intro but still. People hate surrogacy. They are stressed.

This book seems to hate surrogacy in a different way than the online surrogacy review hated surrogacy

I feel as though Teman hates surrogacy but is compelled and moved by the need of the intended mothers. The conversation around how the surrogates manage their bodies comes across to me as oriented around a negative assumption of dissociation. The negative connotations around dissociation may be my own.

This doesn't sit well with me. Is dissociation fundamentally negative? Only a trauma response? Adaptive but to be spurned?

I was struck by Emma Heaney, This Watery Place, reflecting on the ship of Theseus nature of the project of gestation

I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced the only way to describe the situation is dissociation and I'm not convinced complete bodily integration is the peak of mental and emotional health

Everyone is so precious about pregnancy and gestation. I haven't done it and I feel I can't really weigh in without the experience. TBD I guess