Was there something wrong with me?

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.

She is about 25 years old, roughly my age. She asks me some general questions, then moves on to the more intimate variant. I can see from the slight blush (or actually pink) on her pale, round cheeks that she is a bit uncomfortable. The answers I give her she almost awkwardly brushes aside with short, intended nods of agreement. I wonder if she is listening well.

August came, without menstruation. The months flew by, without too many worries, as far as I remember. My boyfriend was checked in the meantime (I hope this word says enough and I don't have to describe any awkward rooms and scenes for his sake). Everything was fine with him, which actually came as a surprise to me. As a teenager, I had been pregnant once and with that in mind, I secretly assumed it couldn't be my fault. By the way, talking about this pregnancy feels more personal than anything else, but it is part of my story. From a distance, it might be easy to judge, because after all, it was my own choice. Yes, I ended that pregnancy myself, something that felt very natural at the time and therefore I can't regret it. But of course, it sometimes crosses my mind that my more difficult journey now is due to the unethical choice of teenage Tess. That karma is quite a bitch.

So everything was fine with him, which is nice. But was there something wrong with me? Time to call the doctor again.

And there I was in the OLVG, in a room opposite the intern with blushing cheeks whom I had to put at ease instead of the other way around. My answers to her questions were no cause for concern, she said, but her colleague wanted to do an ultrasound just to be sure. Was it okay if she took a look too? Of course, I don't lie with my legs wide open under fluorescent light every day, so I'd prefer to have as many spectators as possible right away. In my head, I was sending cards to the rest of the department to invite them to this event.

The colleague was a very small, thin woman with a pointed face and dark curls. I didn't know if I liked her very much. She put a condom on a kind of white dildo attached to a cord and brought it inside to me. Strange feeling. ‘Many eggs on the ovaries,’ she said and started counting them with her finger sliding over the monitor, like a child in grade 3 learning to read for the first time. Many eggs seemed like good news to me, but the little woman thought differently. ‘PCOS, do you know that?’ She told me that if I wanted children now, I needed to make an appointment at the fertility clinic.

I thanked her for her time with my most carefree smile and walked outside, nothing wrong. But there was my mother in the waiting room, insisting on coming to the hospital with me. Upon seeing the most familiar face I know, I suddenly started to cry.

Now I had to call my boyfriend to tell him that getting pregnant could be a tricky story. And that was because of me.

Written by: Tess Hoens