ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the infant observation of a single, gay man's daughter, Laura, born through ovum donation, artificial insemination, and surrogacy. The observation begins before Laura's birth and follows the dyad a few months beyond the birth of the father's second baby when Laura is twenty-two months old. The chapter focuses on the way in which Laura comes to represent the idea of mother. It discusses the father's conflicts and concerns about this and Laura's struggles to understand her brother's and her own birth stories. The observation served in part as a therapeutic intervention, providing a containing and validating function to the father throughout, as well as more direct discussions at the critical times before the birth of each baby. This infant observation represents a variation where the observer judged it appropriate to support the father at times of particular difficulty, becoming an observation mixed with therapeutic and research aims.
