I found out I was pregnant on my doorstep. My husband had an important work call, so I had promised to vacate the house (happily, I might add. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rise in divorce during lockdown wasn’t at least partially down to people being forced to listen to their partner’s work zooms/phone voices). His call was due to start in a matter of minutes and I was still only half-dressed but when you’re trying to conceive, peeing on various sticks becomes as ingrained in your morning ritual as brushing your teeth. By the time I realised just how late it was, the machine I used to test my fertility (an object I had come to hate more than almost anything in this world) had already started counting down. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed the machine and my jacket, and ran out the door. Outside, I sat the test on the window sill while I double locked the door. By the time I turned around again, the test had turned positive.
In all other respects, that morning was as mundane as they come: alarms had gone off, cats had been fed, coffee made and hurried goodbye kisses exchanged. It may seem obvious to say that the shift in that single moment felt seismic but it is also an understatement. Everything about that morning felt suddenly miraculous. The transformation wasn’t just internal, the world around me mirrored it - even the chipped paintwork of the window sill seemed somehow profound. I laughed out loud at the idea that on the other side of the front door, my husband had no idea that our lives had potentially changed forever.
I rang my best friend - pointlessly at first, as it turned out I could barely speak, but eventually I managed to say, ‘it must be wrong. The machine must be broken’. Over the preceding months, I had lost faith in almost everything: the wretched machine that repeatedly told me I was failing; humankind for inventing the cruel Instagram algorithms that tried to sell me tea, mushrooms, apps and supplements that would ‘guarantee’ conception; and, above all, my body. This body that had given me a glimpse into life as a mother and then taken it away - but not before tricking me for weeks with a clever trompe l'oeil of nausea and exhaustion.
I promised myself that if I was able to conceive again, I would cherish every minute of the pregnancy. I would acknowledge every day that my body housed two beating hearts for what it was - miraculous. It hasn’t been an easy promise to keep. The sixteen weeks of all-day, unrelenting nausea seemed inconsequential, some days, in comparison to the anxiety of being pregnant after loss. Not only had I lost faith in my body, I’d lost my faith entirely.
In the first essay I wrote for this Substack, I wrote about the power of hope as one of my core beliefs. Hope as a desire for something to happen but also in its original definition, as a feeling of trust. If I was to keep my promise, I would have to employ both senses of the word: I would have to learn to trust my body again.
For the most part, at least after the twenty-week scan, I have kept my promise. I have found unfathomable joy and gratitude in this pregnancy and continue to find more each day - heaviness and heartburn aside. That’s not to say my anxiety didn’t, and doesn’t still, get the better of me on occasion. I find ultrasound scans immensely triggering, and I’ve also, in moments of paranoia, jiggled my baby awake so that his kicks can reassure me.
I try not to feel hopeless in those moments, instead reminding myself that you’re actually never more hopeful than when you are finding (or fighting) your way back from them. This pregnancy has reminded me that - now more than ever - it is not naive or weak to be hopeful. To be hopeful in the face of anxiety, uncertainty, in the aftermath or midst of trauma, is an act of pure strength.
Even at my happiest, I am never far from the person I was at the beginning of this year: drowning in grief and self-hatred, unrecognisable to my friends, family or even myself. She’s there at every ultrasound appointment and every time I’m asked, well-meaningly, ‘is this your first?’. I think of one of my favourite poems by Derek Walcott (below) and try to embrace her.
I might not recognise her but I am grateful to her, just as I will always be grateful for the 10 blissfully happy weeks I carried my first. In my third trimester but not yet with my baby in my arms, I had my hesitations about writing this piece. Now that I have finished it, I see that it might be my bravest act of hope so far.
For anyone still on their fertility journey: I know first-hand how difficult it can be to read or hear about other people’s pregnancies. Since the day I found out, that has never been far from my mind, however, if I have failed in any part of this newsletter, I am so sorry. I would not wish the experience of loss on anyone, but the community I was welcomed into has been nothing short of sacred, so if you are going through it - please know you are not alone and that my inbox is always open.
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