Main description:

Another Mother gives voice to women who become mothers through the routes of adoption, surrogacy and egg donation, and their silent partners - the birth mothers, surrogate mothers and egg donors - who make motherhood possible for them.

Exploring experiences of motherhood beyond the biological mother raising her child, Everington draws on interviews and a range of interdisciplinary approaches to produce illuminating personal testimonies which expand our understanding of what it means to be a mother. The life writing narratives also examine the unique and hidden relationships that exist between adopters and birth mothers, egg donors and women who become mothers through egg donation, and surrogates and women who become mothers through surrogacy.

Offering a fresh approach in life writing, using hybrid form encompassing edited interview, re-imagined scenes, poetry, personal essay and quotation collage, this topical book is recommended for anyone interested in motherhood studies, gender and women's studies, life writing studies, the sociology of reproduction, creative non-fiction writing approaches, oral history, and ethnography studies.

Contents:

Part I: Introduction

1. Birthing the book: Shanta's story part I

2. Politics and power

Part II: Experimental life writing

3. Alison's story

4. Charlotte's story

5. Shanta's story part II

6. Rubi's story

7. Robin's story

8. Lorraine's story

9. Shanta's story part III

10. Margaret's story

11. Contextual note

Part III: Conclusion

12. Contributing to new understandings of motherhood through expansion and analysis of life writing forms