Proud of my wish
The life of Tess Hoens is amazing, 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 for children, but getting pregnant is still not working. This week she reflects on her miscarriage.
A miscarriage. I knew it from stories, from movies. A terrible moment when the character suddenly screams in pain and blood flows down her legs. The reader/viewer knows: she has a miscarriage. But as meaningless, as dry as it went for me, I had never experienced that. That you go for an ultrasound and they just tell you that the story is over and that you have to wait for or induce the actual miscarriage. Apparently, it often happens like that.
I had the idea that as long as it doesn't go terribly wrong with a lot of pain and blood, it just goes well. I was also quite sure and positive during the pregnancy. I wonder how it will be next time, probably much more uncertain now that you know it can also go wrong without you noticing anything.
A few weeks later and I have started the medication that induces my ovulation again. I am with my mother in Paris. We are in a small patisserie and order a cake with chocolate and hazelnuts when I need to go to the bathroom. I wipe and see a little bit of blood, a pink streak on the toilet paper. With all the reading and online searching, I know that an implantation bleeding should look like this. I start calculating and realize that I am exactly on the day in my simulated cycle when an implantation bleeding is supposed to occur. I grin from ear to ear. Last time it was of course also immediately successful in the first month of medication, why not this time? My mother sees my strangely happy expression and I explain the situation to her. She tries to ‘calm’ me a bit, but I suddenly feel convinced that I am already happily pregnant again. When we go out for dinner that evening and the waiter asks if we have allergies, I even dare to say: ‘I’m pregnant.’
As I write this down, I realize how ridiculous it is and how much my brain sometimes plays tricks on me. How naïve you can still be, even though you know better.
That night in the hotel, I suddenly get cramps and a lot of bleeding while I am not supposed to be on my period yet. The next day I call the hospital and they make an appointment for me to see what is happening down there when I am back in Amsterdam.
The blonde nurse specialist tells me that I probably just started my period a bit earlier but that I am definitely not pregnant. I have the feeling that she is wrong and that something is not right. Later it turns out that not only am I not pregnant, but I didn't even have an ovulation. She lets me take the medication for another month while it is not working at all anymore. You often hear that women are more fertile after a miscarriage, well, for me, the opposite is true. The search for the right medication continues...
