Diverse Pathways to Parenthood

Damien W. Riggs is a professor in psychology at Flinders University and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He is the author of over 200 publications in the areas of gender, family, and mental health, including Working with transgender young people and their families: A critical developmental approach (Palgrave, 2019). He is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and a psychotherapist who specialises in working with transgender and non-binary young people.

1. Introduction: Reproducing our selves through stories

Section I: Imaginations2. Planning for a possible future: Transgender people and fertility preservation3. Dreams of motherhood: Women in heterosexual couples planning for a first child4. Animal companions as kin: The significance of animals to women of diverse sexualities

Section II: Interruptions5. Assisting reproduction: Heterosexual women’s experiences with infertility and fertility-related challenges6. A profound grief: Heterosexual women’s experiences of pregnancy loss7. Disenfranchised grief: Foster parent experiences of an unplanned placement termination

Section III: Conceptions8. Donor conception: Creating new possibilities?9. Baby desired, travel required: Negotiating international commercial surrogacy arrangements10. Conception narratives: Journeys to family for adoptive and foster parents

Section IV: Reproductions11. Wearing the pants?: Men’s accounts of becoming fathers12. An act of resistance: Lesbian women becoming parents13. Generations: Parent views on becoming grandparents14. Conclusion: From stories to practice