Embodied attachments: IVF, the maternal body, and the making of embryo kinship

Within the sphere of IVF (in vitro fertilization), there is increasing concern about the stockpiles of frozen embryos held in clinics across the country. This normative discourse tends to take the patient‐embryo relationship for granted, with salient political consequences for current embryo ‘personhood’ debates. Feminist anthropologists have shown that IVF patients’ orientations to their embryos are context‐specific and emerge through particular practices. Accordingly, this article offers new insights into how patients form embodied maternal subjectivities through the IVF process itself, and reveals how this subject‐making implicates patients’ ability to relinquish (donate or discard) their embryos post‐treatment. Drawing on long‐term ethnographic research in a mid‐sized U.S. IVF clinic, I focus on two key phases of treatment—the ovarian stimulation phase of growing eggs, and the embryo transfer procedure that places embryos inside uteruses—as laden with practices and norms that link patients’ reproductive bodies to their anticipated reproductive futures. Patients’ embodied experiences at both of these stages foster maternal subjectivities and relationships with their embryos that last long after treatment ends. I find this dynamic to be ethically fraught, as clinics who encourage patients to bond with their embryos stand to benefit economically (via annual storage fees) from their lingering relationships.