Tess talks out of turn
The life of Tess Hoens is amazing, but even she has 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 for children, but getting pregnant is still not working. This week she thinks back to that time when she spoke out of turn.
It's already mid-January when I walk along the canals with my oldest friend Sanne. The canals are trying hard to freeze over so the city's residents can skate on them, but it's not cold enough and there are holes everywhere in the thin ice. ‘I really hope it happens for you soon,’ says Sanne. She is of course referring to getting pregnant. I mumble something back unintelligibly. ‘What did you say?’ She looks at me questioningly. ‘It has already happened,’ I repeat, this time more clearly. She slows her pace and looks at me. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I'm pregnant,’ I say. Her eyes widen and she asks if it's really true. Then she throws her arms around me in the middle of a bridge on the Keizersgracht. I enjoy this moment, in my beautiful city with my best friend who hugs me because I'm pregnant.
Suddenly I pull away and quickly say: ‘You can't tell anyone! Mr. wants to keep it a secret for now. But how can I hide this from you?’ She nods understandingly. We continue walking and decide to go to the movies. We end up missing a lot of the film. We have dived into an app that I just downloaded. It says how big the baby should be, how I should be feeling right now, and how that will change week by week. We are probably bothering the other visitors in the theater. Normally, I would find that very awkward and antisocial, but right now I don't care much.
After the movie, we each go our separate ways and I'm on my way home when my mother calls, she wants to pick me up. In the car, she asks with a grin if I have any cravings now that I'm pregnant. She tells how she ate Cornetto's every day when I was growing in her belly and that she could ask my father to get her one at the most bizarre times, after all, she was pregnant. I smile at her sweet story and say that I'm craving a croquette. I don't know if I say it to please her, because I want a hormonal craving (that's just part of being pregnant) or because I really want a croquette, but we pick one up at a snack bar on the Haarlemmerdijk and it's by far the best one I've ever had.
Written by: Tess Hoens
