“Not being able to sleep out of fear”

Tess Hoens' life is amazing, but her journey to becoming pregnant did not go as she had hoped. Because there is already enough of a facade and because honesty helps, she writes about how her pregnancy is progressing. This week she talks about the uncertainty.

Due to my journey and of course the miscarriage a year earlier, I am uncertain. Therefore, we decide to register at a midwifery practice where you have to pay a little extra but where you get very good service and a lot of ultrasounds and other extras. This means that at 6.5 weeks pregnant, we already get our first ultrasound. Even earlier than I am allowed to go to the hospital. Super nice and I recommend this practice to everyone, it’s called Femme Amsterdam. And no, this is not a paid advertisement.

The night before my first ultrasound, I can't sleep. I had that last year too, in a positive way. I couldn't sleep then because I was so excited to see the little one for the first time. Well, we all know how that ended, so this time it was more about not being able to sleep out of fear. Many people had already informed me: ‘If you don’t see a heartbeat now, it doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong. So early in your pregnancy, it could very well be that everything is fine but that it’s just not visible yet.’ With this in mind, I had at least resolved not to panic if there wasn’t immediately good news tomorrow.

I ring the bell and walk inside, there is a very pleasant waiting room, totally different from what I have come to expect from the cold hospital. I sit on a nice couch, there are tea and mandarins ready, and beautiful birth announcements hang everywhere. On the side table, there are various information books. I don’t take any. Afraid of ‘jinxing’ something, I am not reading up on pregnancy at all this time. My boyfriend works around the corner from the practice and I am waiting for him here. I am happy when I hear his voice in the hallway. We are together.

‘Tess?’ A lovely young woman stands there looking for the right person. We stand up and walk with her. I tell a bit about my past and she understandingly says that it must be very exciting now. Then she says, contrary to what I had understood from others, that at 6.5 weeks a heartbeat should indeed be visible. So now it’s really either way. My own heart is racing as I take off my pants for the internal ultrasound. I take a seat on the couch and grab my boyfriend's hand. He squeezes it. She brings in the device, but the searching doesn’t take long at all. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘that white flicker on the screen is the heartbeat. Looks good!’ The ultrasound takes a long time and she gives us plenty of time to take in the little being inside me. I can’t believe it. It worked. Our little one has a beating heart. My body can really make babies.