‘I feel like I'm in free fall’

The life of Tess Hoens is amazing, but for her, getting pregnant didn't go as she had thought. Because there is already enough of a facade and because honesty helps, she writes about how her pregnancy is going. This week she talks about the panic she felt due to bleeding.

I run down the hallway at work and quickly pull my hair back before I lean over the pot. Everything I've eaten today flashes before me. The smell makes me gag again. A smile comes to my face between the vomiting. I'm nauseous, I'm so nauseous but I can't be upset about it for a moment. I'm really pregnant and my body is cooperating. My nipples hurt, I'm tired and I prefer to eat continuously. Yesterday I scraped an entire jar (okay, a small jar) of sambal oelek because I craved something spicy. I read somewhere that you get a boy then...

It's week eight of my pregnancy and even though everything indicates that I'm pregnant, I sometimes remain afraid that something will go wrong. My boyfriend is on a guys' trip and is at a football match in Florence when I suddenly get a bit of cramping on the couch at home and feel like I'm leaking. In the past few days, I had some light red blood when wiping, but now that I'm sitting on the toilet, it seems like the blood is flowing out. I don't want to panic immediately, I've understood from others that it can be normal but I can't do anything about it, tears are streaming down my cheeks and in my stomach, I feel like I'm in free fall.

I call the midwife. ‘Hi, this is Nora!’ ‘Hi Nora, this is Tess Hoens, I'm eight weeks pregnant and a week and a half ago I was with you for an ultrasound and there was a heartbeat visible but now I'm losing blood. What should I do?’ She asks some standard questions about my condition and asks how much blood it is. ‘Oh, okay. Yes, it sometimes happens that everything is fine but I can't promise you that. We can't really do anything right now. If it stops soon, we should assume everything is okay, but if the bleeding continues... Yes, then the other.’ Noraaaa, come on. I wanted to hear you say that it's very normal, that everything is totally fine. That there is no possibility that the pregnancy will go wrong again. I grab a hot water bottle and a bar of chocolate and start a series. I try to comfort myself and change my thoughts. I do tell my boyfriend what the situation is, but I don't immediately show how much I assume that something is wrong.

A few hours later, the bleeding has stopped. Is that fast enough?

Yes, that was it. At the next ultrasound, we see our little baby moving around a lot. The legs are kicking in the air. I promise myself to really keep the faith now.