Rosado, Filipa Bouhon Valente Rosa Falcão BorgesMarques, Maria Emília2017-03-272017-03-272016Studies in the Maternal, 8(1), 1-15. Doi: 10.16995/sim.2151759-0434http://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/5361In this paper, we share some initial findings from PhD research on the psychic processes of pregnancy. Our aim is to make visible the invisible work of the pregnant woman’s mind. As Tyler and Baraitser (2013) note, ‘the 1960s marked the rise of foetal celebrity, and the 1990s witnessed the breaking of a taboo on the visibility of the pregnant body’ (p. 7). But as these authors also note, ‘today pregnancy is a disciplinary ‘body project’ which women are instructed to covet and enjoy’ (p. 7). This, we believe, may be another way of rendering the subjective experience of pregnancy invisible, as it is an instruction that women are supposed to comply with. An instruction that silences the extreme, conflicting and confusing emotions that, beneath the skin, on the dark side of the womb (Raphael-Leff, 2015), pregnancy also is. We then hope to illuminate that invisible and always subjective experience, by exploring some aspects of a narrative from a woman we have called ‘Petra,’ a pregnant woman interviewed as a participant in our study.engInexistenteThe creation of meaning during pregnancyjournal article10.16995/sim.215