In this article, we reflect on the particular temporal structure of pregnancies and prenatal entities with the aim to contribute to the field of the sociology of pregnancy. Medical models and technology shape today’s notion of pregnancy as a linear, nine-month developmental process that leads to the birth of a child. Through ultrasound technology and prenatal examinations, prenatal entities have thus historically gained a present ‘being’ as a developing, unborn child. While these ideas undoubtedly greatly influence the participants’ interpretations, a culturalistic perspective on time alone does not do justice to the phenomenon’s lived tensions and the temporal complexity of the phenomenon. From a Schutzian perspective of time, we have worked out how practices of pregnancy and the production of meaning are shaped by an interwoven back and forth between orientations to the past, present and future. Drawing on relevant works from the sociology of pregnancy, we work out five modes of temporal references that mold the phenomenon of pregnancy: joint imagination of the couple, in which the (un)born is anticipated as fantasies of the future (1), passivities of pregnancy, in which the desired future is experienced as unable to influence (2), the presentification of the unborn in and through visual and bodily-somatic contact moments (3), its futurization through the cultivation of a ‘not-yet’ (4) and prenatal losses, as a critical rupture with the anticipated and desired future (5). Our analysis underlines the potential of a time sociological perspective on pregnancy and the constitution of relationships and persons.

在本文中，我们反思怀孕和产前实体的特殊时间结构，旨在为怀孕社会学领域做出贡献。医学模型和技术将今天的怀孕概念塑造为一个线性的、九个月的发展过程，导致孩子出生。通过超声波技术和产前检查，产前实体因此在历史上获得了作为发育中的未出生婴儿的当前“存在”。虽然这些想法无疑极大地影响了参与者的解释，但仅对时间的文化主义观点并不能公正地处理这种现象的生活紧张和现象的时间复杂性。从舒茨时间的角度来看，我们已经研究出怀孕的实践和意义的产生是如何通过过去、现在和未来方向之间的相互交织来塑造的。借鉴怀孕社会学的相关作品，我们制定了塑造怀孕现象的五种时间参考模式：夫妻的共同想象，其中（未）出生被预期为未来的幻想（1），被动怀孕，其中所期望的未来被体验为无法影响（2），未出生在视觉和身体 - 身体接触时刻的呈现（3），通过培养“尚未”（3）的未来化（ 4) 和产前损失，作为与预期和期望的未来 (5) 的严重破裂。