Having children is not as straightforward as it sometimes seems

The life of Tess Hoens is wonderful, but even for her, there are things that don't quite go as she had hoped. And she wants to write about that. Because there is already enough of a facade and because honesty helps. Tess has a desire to have children, but getting pregnant is still not working.

The months of waiting had begun, spring to summer. Months about which there is very little to tell regarding getting pregnant, a good time to detach from my story and see it a bit more generally.

Recently, I went out to dinner with a friend who works at a midwifery practice, one of those in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid where they offer the latest tricks and treatments and where clients generally have a relatively high expectation.

We wondered why it seems that women are having more and more difficulty getting pregnant (I say ‘it seems’ because I have never compared the figures from then and now and I do not consider myself all-knowing). I thought that we have more stress, unhealthy eating patterns, more radiation everywhere, and moreover, it is talked about more openly (it could be even better), which might make it seem like women are struggling with it more than ever. But my friend pointed out that in many cases it also seems to take longer because we give it much less time. We think we can control and plan everything, that everything is manageable. We find the waiting feels much longer than how people felt about it in the past. Often enough, she has women on the phone at the practice who become impatient after two to three months. She tells me that doctors often subtract months from the period you indicate you have been trying, purely because almost every woman lies about it or at least exaggerates.

I personally noticed that after the last column went online, everyone assumed I was talking about the past year, while it actually took place more than a year and a half ago. My boyfriend even received several messages along the lines of: ‘how nice, almost a father’, because those people assumed that it must have worked by now. It doesn't quickly occur to people that such a thing often takes years. I share my story here, but not because I am experiencing something so exceptional; it is because more than half of women go through roughly the same thing but do not talk about it. Which is, by the way, their right.

I hope that people who have not yet encountered this learn that it is not as self-evident as it seems. I also asked couples at random if they wanted kids and have now had to learn the ‘hard way’ that you shouldn't ask such a question.

I hope that all the lovely women who are also dealing with this can muster a bit of patience. I have learned that not everything in life can be controlled and that sometimes you have to be able to let things go (just don't dare to say that to me unless you want a tap on your nose).

But above all, I have learned that my boyfriend and I can handle quite a lot together and that our wish is deeper than I could have ever imagined.

All the fuss so far has still been good for something. But now it can be over.