Gravidez (im)possibilitada: Experiência emocional de gestantes homossexuais e heterossexuais via técnica de reprodução assistida

Abstract

When the desire to experience pregnancy comes up against impossibilities, whether due to the reproductive infertility of the heterosexual couple or due to the structural infertility of the homosexual couple, assisted reproduction techniques may come into play. The present research investigated the emotional experience of pregnant women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, whose pregnancy had occurred precisely through the techniques of assisted reproduction. Individual interviews were conducted, anchored in the psychoanalytic method, with eight participants. In the interviews, an interactive narrative was used as a mediating resource. After each interview, the interviewer wrote a transferential narrative about that meeting. The outcomes of the participants' interactive narratives were analyzed psychoanalytically, together with the transferential narratives of the interviewer, and two categories were identified: one related to the emotional experience of the pregnant woman with the surrounding environment (constituted by the team of professionals, the conjugal couple and the society in general) and the other one related to the pregnant woman with the baby. It was possible to observe interconnection between both categories, with the participants feeling persecuted by the discriminatory society and, also, joining the babies crossed by an equally conservative imaginary. The present study hopes to contribute so that psychologists and psychoanalysts “get acquainted” with the new family configurations and new ways of conceiving families, becoming committed to work towards the elaboration of the origin of this desire, before affirming themselves rigidly dealing with psychopathology.