Lil tells… Part 6

‘Where I thought my mind was not there yet, it turned out to be my body that had much more trouble with it. The missed abortion was not accepted and my body decided to remain pregnant with exactly nothing.’

Last week I told you here that my follow-up, despite a successful check-up, turned out not to be good. At least... At the time of the check-up, everything looked perfect, but no one expected that my body was at that moment starting a rebellion.

It turned out that getting my period ‘again’ was quite a thing. The weeks flew by, which after a lot of patience gradually became more and more restless. What you as a woman would prefer to skip every month suddenly became what I hoped for the most every single day. But no, my monthly celebration was for some strange reason no longer being celebrated. In short, this meant that I had to report too often to that damn chair at my gynecologist and scheduled one follow-up appointment after another at the hospital. With questions and comments from the receptionist like ‘Have you traveled during your pregnancy?’ and ‘When is your due date?’ to ‘We've never experienced this before‘ and ’You really are an unfortunate person' from the doctors, I will spare you the details of my appointments and treatment attempts, but man, what a hell of a ride this period was, which seemed to have no end from summer to winter. One diagnosis after another with the corresponding action plan was thrown at me, which my body unfortunately decided to ignore zero times. Bizarre... Because while I thought all this time that my mind was not there yet, it suddenly turned out to be my body that had much more trouble with it. The missed abortion was not accepted and my body decided to remain pregnant with exactly nothing, with yes: free hormones all over the place.

After ultimately weighing the pros and cons for far too long, the decision is there: I am going under anesthesia to be cured in the hope of making my body understand what's going on. I haven't been pregnant for months, so please go with that flow. The 24 hours before and after the operation, I think I cried non-stop. I was more than exhausted and at the same time so afraid of what would go ‘wrong’ this time. I just couldn't believe that it was over after almost six months...

Meanwhile, it's November and I have my cycle back. I am once again in the waiting room at the gynecologist where I have become immune to the pregnant women around me. ‘You are clear, Mrs. Brijl, really now,’ my gynecologist assures me. I immediately cry. From relief, joy, and sadness at the same time. Have I finally reached my final destination of this hell of a ride? I decide to believe in it and to get off that train as quickly as possible before it suddenly speeds away. It's a heavy step, made possible by a hefty backpack of nasty souvenirs on my back, but I can do this. Just like you. Because alone, I am not. Never, right?

In the summer of 2019, I received the sad news of a missed abortion. After three months, it was seen on the second ultrasound that the little heart unfortunately no longer beat. I will take you along every Tuesday morning on Amayzine for the coming weeks to give this event in my life a better place and to make this topic less taboo, but mainly to give others in a similar situation the feeling that they are not alone. Because together we are so much stronger. And alone, you are not. I promise you that.