ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author highlights the psychological meanings of the reproductive choices lesbians make. He also highlights some of the concerns that lesbians may bring to parenting and that may inform the choices that they make and the issues they struggle with in making those decisions. Even for lesbians who have been out for many years, are in happy and stable relationships and have reached the point of planning a family, lingering issues of internaliased homophobia are likely to surface in the form of concerns about parenting. The author demonstrates the myriad psychological considerations from multiple patients that go into this one of many decisions along the often complex lesbian path to parenthood. He presents case material from three different individuals and couples with whom he had worked in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as they sorted out the psychological implications of their reproductive choices and the way these mirrored important psychodynamics within themselves and with their partners.
