Embodied Subjects: Phenomenological Reconstruction of the Process of Becoming a Mother

This chapter examines in depth the embodied aspects of the experience of pregnancy as shaped by culturally and historically specific representations and technologies. A detailed phenomenological analysis will show that for a woman herself, her own body and the baby in her womb appear as both embodied and mediated by (primarily medical) knowledge and technology. An essential aspect of pregnant embodiment is certainly the fact that another being develops in the woman’s body, gradually becoming more and more differentiated and autonomous for her—a process that is closely interwoven with the psychological transition to motherhood. The analysis in this chapter will therefore attempt to follow a unique temporality of the lived experience of pregnancy by focusing on a dynamic interplay of embodied and technologically mediated aspects that are central to both the identification with pregnancy/motherhood and the individuation of the baby for the mother. The transition to motherhood is thus explored as a dynamic process of becoming of two subjects, each specific but interwoven with the other.