Two stripes... Two stripes? Two stripes!
The life of Tess Hoens is wonderful, 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 reflects on that one test.
The new year began. A new life was also supposed to begin. But it just continued, without change. The 12 o'clock moment of New Year's feels always a bit magical. A new era begins, new opportunities arise. You feel new energy throughout your body. But it doesn't last long, on January 1st (okay, maybe January 2nd) you notice that nothing has really changed. That time is indeed a human-made phenomenon and that it doesn't matter whether it's 2017, 2018, or 2019.
The feeling I had at the turn of the year that I would really become a mother this coming year had also faded a bit.
It is January 7th, a week later. My boyfriend and I have scheduled a lazy Sunday on the couch. The winter period without holidays has clearly begun. Gloomy, dark, and without festivities in sight. I realize that there is still one pregnancy test lying at the top of our kitchen cupboard. Later I would say it was a premonition, but maybe it was simply out of pure boredom that I decided to pee on it. I grab the stick and a glass and walk to the bathroom with it, for the umpteenth time. On autopilot, I hold the glass in such a way in the stream that there is no risk of peeing over my hand, remove the test from its packaging, and hang it in the half-full glass. Twenty seconds of waiting and then you can read the result.
Two lines then. For those who are really not familiar with this whole thing: two lines is a positive test result. And a positive test result means pregnant! I am pregnant. I don't feel happy about it. I shout it to my boyfriend but it feels like I'm making it up. As if I'm shouting it while I actually know very well that it can't be true, just a teenage scream for attention. My boyfriend reacts a bit confused: ‘But you were on your period, right? Maybe the test is wrong.’ ‘No, maybe the test is wrong,’ I echo him. We decide that I need to go to the store to get more tests. I don't even ask him to come along. It doesn't feel like our big moment.
There are now five positive tests on our countertop and we have to start believing that I am pregnant. But a euphoric moment, hugging each other and crying with joy, is absent.
The question of whether my bleeding from two weeks ago was a miscarriage hangs over our heads...
Written by: Tess Hoens
