The body knows 

Where unassisted conception is concerned, there is a moment when your body knows you’re pregnant but your mind does not. Unbeknownst to your conscious mind, cells are dividing and dividing, hormones are rising and falling, a whole universe is being created within your body and you may not even know it. Perhaps you might suspect it, particularly if the conception is planned and timed and you present the classic symptoms.  

But in many cases, until you take that test, body and mind are divided in their future outlooks. As you take the test, you watch those two lines emerge and in a matter of minutes you go from not pregnant to pregnant. An extraordinary and cosmic leap.  

The movie-moment 

Some of us wait years and years to take that leap, which can make the test result utterly thrilling as we finally land in our movie-moment of throwing our arms around a loved one to celebrate a miraculous and long anticipated outcome. But if you’re arriving there after a fight hard won, or if this isn’t your first time seeing those lines appear, you may know that just as it only takes a moment to go from not pregnant to pregnant, so it can reverse just as quickly.

Reversing across the void

While trying to embrace the daily reality of my unexpected positive, I am in constant battle with my own distrust of my body. In any moment this could end and my body may not even alert me, such is the reality of a silent or missed miscarriage. When I have told people my news (more on that later), I have used the words ‘I’ve had a positive pregnancy test’. To say ‘I’m pregnant’ or – worse still – ‘I’m having a baby’ feels utterly out of reach. In some ways I still don’t feel like either of those things are true. ‘I’ve had a positive pregnancy test’ is factual and doesn’t offer the promise of something more.  

I’m still in conflict with a rational mind that specialises in catastrophising and runs through the litany of things that may go wrong, or may already have gone wrong.  

Every trip to the toilet involves an anxious deep breath before I wipe, because I know how that deep red can catch you off-guard; the starting gun for the beginning of the end as you reverse across the void from pregnant to not pregnant.

The aftermath

In my experience of pregnancies and pregnancy loss (all have been early losses), one of the few directions you are given if you are seen by a medical professional is to take a pregnancy test. This is to confirm the miscarriage is complete; that no ‘products of conception’ remain in your body. There is good reason for this; retained products, as they are oh-so sensitively called, could cause serious complications. If you haven’t had a scan to confirm the location of the pregnancy, there is also the risk of ectopic pregnancy. The negative pregnancy test will confirm that the hCG hormone is no longer traceable, your body has successfully purged all elements of your former state of expecting. Medically, this is ideal. But personally?  

The absence of so much more

I couldn’t bring myself to test in the aftermath of any of my miscarriages. To many this will seem like a silly risk, but at the time I couldn’t face the agony of that single line staring back at me. The absence of that second line would silently mark the absence of so much more.  

Still I ponder the fate of my positive. I know how large the gap is between the person who desperately wants to be pregnant and the person who is. I have spent many a year on the wrong side of that gap. I am still stunned by my extraordinary good fortune. I maintain something that resembles hope as I look towards all the obstacles that exist between now and what may be. At the moment the void is behind me and I’ll keep it there for as long as I can.