Impossible motherhood: From the desire for motherhood to non-motherhood

Abstract

This article proposes to explore the biographic accounts and everyday experiences of cisgender women who, for various reasons and biopsychosocial conditions, are not mothers. From a feminist focus and using a qualitative methodology, it looks at the complex nature of the experience for women who felt the desire to be mothers and started out on a quest for motherhood. As a result of the thematic analysis of their accounts, we find that some women have undergone miscarriages and repetition miscarriages, facing infertility problems (structural, relational and social) and medicalisation of their bodies using assisted reproduction technology (ART). It has been seen how biomedicine and reproductive biotechnology boost the search for biological (and medical) solutions to social problems related to structural infertility. Furthermore, the importance given to experiencing ‘grief for non-motherhood’, is emphasised, composed of different processes that are socially denied or disenfranchised —such as gestational grief, genetic grief or institutional grief— and performing small rituals to say goodbye. It is demonstrated that, following a process of acceptance of the non-motherhood and self-knowledge, the women in question redefine their identity in new projects. Finally, the relevance of mutual support groups (MSG) is demonstrated as a way of sharing frames of reference, forging empathy relationships and reciprocity networks. The conclusions highlight how the journey from ‘impossible motherhood’ to non-motherhood is a subjective process, involving reflection and a physical and emotional life lesson, that makes it possible to challenge, rethink and overthrow the hegemonic representations of motherhood generating new meanings and social practices bound to non-motherhood.