Intended Mothers and Maternal Intentions
Intended Mothers and Maternal Intentions
This chapter looks at the experiences of intended mothers during the surrogacy process, with a particular focus on their “parental claiming practices.” This concept refers to the strategies used by those preparing themselves to adopt as they wait for that fateful phone call notifying them that they have become parents. Unlike adoptive mothers, intended mothers through surrogacy have access to the time frame of conventional pregnancy and know their child's history from the moment of conception. The chapter examines two claiming practices that intended mothers in this study employed while awaiting the birth of their child. The first, kin claiming, focuses on rendering the expected child their own kin. The second practice, maternal claiming, involves techniques aimed at claiming entitlement to the social label of mother of the expected baby.
Keywords: surrogacy, mothers, parental claiming, kin claiming, maternal claiming
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