Pregnancy and Birth

Karen O’Donnell is Director of Studies and Lecturer in Worship & Human Community at Westcott House, Cambridge. A feminist, ecumenical, practical theologian, her interdisciplinary research interests span theology, spirituality, and pedagogy. She is the author of Broken Bodies and The Dark Womb, which was longlisted for the 2023 Michael Ramsey Prize. Claire Williams is a teacher and researcher at Regents Theological College, and the author of Peculiar Discipleship.

Acknowledgements
Contributors
Wombs of our Own

Conception by Karen O’Donnell and Claire Williams

Concept Conception: It All Begins Somewhere by Ruth Wells

Theological Pregnancies
The Body is (Not Quite) One by Rachel Muers
My Body in Parts by Ruth Wells
Pregnancies Human and Divine: The Flesh of Mary and the Body of Christ by Karen O’Donnell
This is my Body by Ruth Wells
Reading 1 Timothy 2:15 Through the Lens of Black Pregnancy and WomanistCare by Victoria Omotoso
Reflections on the ‘Travail’ of the Earth in Romans 8, and Humans’ role in Companioning this Labour by Christopher Southgate
Kenotic Invitation by Ruth Wells
‘Groaning in Labour…Awaiting Adoption’: Pregnancy to Adoption as a Paradigm for Understanding God’s Action in the World by Helen Collins
Beyond Borderland by Ruth Wells
‘Her Bleeding Stopped’: The Embodied Borderland of the Menopause by Julie Gittoes

Spiritual Pregnancies
Christian Spirituality in Pregnancy and Childbirth by Alison Price
Psycho-spiritual Formation in Pregnancy: A Letter to a Younger, Christian Friend by Jo Winn-Smith
Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Mysticism: Reading the Texts of Angela of Foligno by Michael Hahn and Lydia Shahan

Disruptive Pregnancies
Surrogacy, Secrecy, and the Sin of the Autonomous Self by Danielle Tumminio Hansen
Undignified Flesh: An Indignant Theology of Single Pregnancy by Karen Bray
Dissolving Domination by Ruth Wells
Pregnant and Fat by Sarah Pritchard
Voluminous by Ruth Wells
Pregnant Masculinities: Utilising the Frame of ‘Solidarity’ to Navigate Between the Dominant Frames of ‘Dysphoria’ and ‘Euphoria’ in Narratives of Transmasculine Pregnancy by Alex Clare-Young
The Seahorse by Ruth Wells

Ethical Pregnancies
Solidarity with the ‘Stinking Womb’: Contemplating the Experiences of Pregnant Dalit Women and Hagar by Eve Parker
Threatening Womb by Ruth Wells
The Precarity and Moral Obligations of Pregnancy by Margaret D. Kamitsuka
A Response to Karen O’Donnell’s and Margaret Kamitsuka’s Feminist Reimaginings of Eschatology through the Lens of Pregnancy Loss by Susannah Cornwall
Liminal Life: A Theological Response to Preimplanation Pregnancy, Embryo Disposal and Loss by Abigail Maguire
Liminality by Ruth Wells
Abortion and Theology: The Power Effects of the Abstract by Noirin MacNamara and Kellie Turtle

Painful Pregnancies
Groaning Witness: A Theological Response to Adverse Prenatal Diagnosis by Heather Morgan
The Mind of Christ: Self-Emptying, Kenosis, and Pregnancy Sickness by Chine McDonald
Hyperemesis Gravidarum Haiku by Ruth Wells
‘May this mother, remembering no longer her anguish, trust you in all things’: A Liturgical Response to Birth Trauma by Alice Watson
Attending to Silence and Screaming: A Theology from Mental Illness in Pregnancy by Beth Allison-Glenny
Bodies and All That by Ruth Wells

Afterbirth by Claire Williams and Karen O’Donnell