On the personal side of things.

Yes, I've been pregnant. No, I don't have a child.

I guess I don't need to explain. My decision, my responsibility, my pain. Mine alone. No one would help me carry my child, no one helped me deal with the consequences.

And yet, I wouldn't want anything to be different now. Nothing has taught me more about life, love and compassion than those few weeks I was a we. I don't wish I could have avoided this situation, I don't whish I could change what I've done. If anything, I am grateful for that little thing coming and living with me for however short a time we had. I gained a deeper understanding about pretty much everything, and if pain, guilt and shame are the price I have to pay, I pay it willingly.

Sometimes I feel like a cold hearted bitch because I am, in some sort of twisted way, grateful for what many would call the death - or the murder - of my child. And true, in order to deal with it, I did turn into a cold hearted bitch for a while. It's a tough decision, it was a tough time. I could simply not allow myself to feel everything at once.

But it was I who carried my child, not those who'd call me a murderer. It was us who shared this body, not anyone else. I made the conscious decision to call her my child - if I was going to deal with the pain, then I'd go the whole way, not trying to ease anything by telling myself something about cells and brain waves. And the truth is, from the very first moment, she was my child - our child. Even knowing I would never ever bring her to life, I could not deny the joy I felt when I found out. The horror, the joy. What followed then was a nightmare best kept in the dark. And it did not stop. I simply slid out of my life as it had been and I haven't made it back. I live on this side now. No one knows, no one sees, but that life, it has gone, and I won't get it back.

From the very beginning, I felt some kind of presence. Something was different - I denied it, because of reasons, but I knew. But that presence was not attatched to that thing in my womb. It was all around me, it permeated me. It was not conscious, it was not alive, it was just there. Just as love is there. But I was in shock. I couldn't have a child, I didn't want to. I pretended not to feel what I was feeling.

You see, my womb, my body. My hormones going wild, my signature on the paper. That's what it boils down to in the end. No one else. It is an immense weight, the inability to share any of this with anyone. As every woman who manages to maintain a true connection with her body knows not only with her mind, hormones have an enormous influence on how we feel, and on how we think. And getting rid of that thing in my womb hurt. It hurt physically, psychologically, it hurt in so many ways I just fail to describe it. And as if this was not enough, I was thrown into an intricate situation involving a whole bunch of people who were not allowed to know and expected more of me than I could have given even in my best times. A little part of my died.

A father? yes. There was one. Up until then.

But the point of the story is a different one. That presence, it did not go away after I saw that bloody mass disappear in the hospital trash. It stayed with me. It was different, but it stayed with me for quite a while. And I remember the first time I was able to feel joy again: It was when I felt the presence dissolve and become one with our surroundings again. Becoming dust and air and love and light, and thus continuing to be part of my life for now and ever. Look, I thought I heard her say, cry if you want to, as much as you need to. But I'm not gone. Thank you for letting me join you, thank you for letting me go. It was a short time, but what matters, is that we've been together.

And that little moment changed everything. That moment was worth all the suffering I went through and even all the suffering I caused in the aftermath. This is not about logic, or ethics, or reason, this is about the most powerful experience I've ever had. And no one will ever take that away from me.

Thank you, little one, for giving me so much. I know, one day, you, me, your father and everyone else won't be separated anymore. We won't be us, but we won't mind. Because We Are One.