In May 2017, just before I ran from my abusive ex, we were still seeing each other in secret. To him, sex was the ultimate love language, the only possible way for him to express his affection and feelings. I knew I was moving out, I already had a new apartment waiting, but I still needed the previous tenants to move out. Don’t even ask why I even agreed to meet him. It’s the complex dynamics of leaving an abuser. Fear, love, hope, despair are a heady mix.

Our encounters were infrequent, and I wasn’t on the pill. But this time, when I got up after sex, I knew that something was off. I confronted him, asking if he really pulled out as we had agreed. He swore to God that he did. Yeah, sure. I knew what I knew. I felt it. (The term is “stealthing” and it’s a crime in some countries.) I knew I was leaving him, and that we had no future together, so I stopped by my doctor before I went to work, and got a morning-after pill that I took immediately, within 12 hours. And like clockwork, my ex disappeared right after. Good riddance.

Everything was fine. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. First, I started to drop things. They just slipped out of my hands: my car keys, my mug, my phone. I had been pregnant enough times before to start worrying. I started to look for other signs, and to my horror, I found them.

I started my new job on a Tuesday and, before my period was even due, I was already sure I was pregnant. On that same Friday, I bought a pregnancy test and peed on it. I remember sitting in the toilet in a Starbucks, waiting for the results. I couldn’t even shed a tear when I saw it. I was numb… not because it took me by surprise, but because I was hoping that none of this was happening to me. It couldn’t be I thought. Life cannot do this to me. I was seeing my life from the outside. This wasn’t me sitting here. It couldn’t be.

I hoped that it would just go away. There are women who miscarry, I told myself. Maybe I will too. I was helpless and terrified. But deep down… I knew I wouldn’t miscarry.

I needed to keep it together. Keep it a secret. Keep my new job. And that meant I could not keep this baby. I didn’t even dare to go to my own doctor, I was so ashamed. I scheduled an appointment at a private clinic, and indicated in advance on the phone that I did not want to proceed with this pregnancy. The doctor was a very kind, soft-spoken young man with deep brown eyes and his assistant was super sweet too — as you’d expect at a private clinic. After the initial documentation and routine questions there I was, on the examination table. The doctor examined me manually and with the ultrasound, and confirmed the pregnancy.

I told him I didn’t want to see the ultrasound picture, so he turned the monitor off. I said I didn’t want to hear the heartbeat either, so he turned the sound off. But he couldn’t turn his diagnosis off. He dictated it to the assistant who quickly typed it into the system, documenting my verdict. I tried to tune it out. I hummed to myself, determined to think about something — anything — else. Awful thoughts raced through my mind about the monster spawn taking up space in my body.

But I couldn’t not hear what he said to the assistant — he used cryptic medical terms, but I understood anyway: One fetus is this big, the other is that big. “Wait, what?” I said. He looked at me, a terrible sadness in his eyes and told me that I was pregnant with twins. I closed my eyes. The world stopped spinning and, finally, the tears came with full force. Unable to breathe, my whole body began to shake and shiver.

The sound reached into the depths of my soul, shaking my entire existence to its core.

“Please turn the monitor back on,” I asked with a voice I thought was steady. He did, without a word. And there they were. Two little beans, floating in a black and white galaxy of pixels. A tsunami of inexplicable, terrible love washed over me. My babies! Not in any way resembling the thoughts I had about them. Not something awful that would ruin my life. Two beautiful and innocent creatures who chose me, of all people, to be their mum. “The heartbeat too?” he asked. I nodded yes. And then I heard it, heard them, the unmistakable whoosh-whoosh of beating hearts translated by a soulless machine. The sound reached into the depths of my soul, shaking my entire existence to its core.

“I know you said you don’t want to proceed with this pregnancy, but I am obliged to tell you that they are perfectly healthy and looking at the current almost-equal size of them, it would probably remain a twin pregnancy,” the doctor said. I swallowed and nodded.

I got up.

Wiped off the gel.

Got dressed.

I waited for my papers, got the glossy ultrasound picture, and signed what I had to sign.

I listened to their instructions on the steps to follow to proceed with my decision. I heard everything from deep within a bubble, voices echoing at me from a distance, barely making it into my mind.

I needed to go to child protection services twice, first to announce that I was going to end it, then I had to wait three days, and then I had to go back to confirm that I still hadn’t changed my mind. Only then could I schedule a date for the operation, undergo a bunch of medical tests, fill out endless pages of documentation, affirming that I agreed and consented to everything. It was the middle of May, and because in Hungary, the abortion pill was not an option, I needed to wait until mid-June, the appropriate time for the most successful operation.