False Pregnancy

Your body has begun a pregnancy that does not medically exist. The belly grows rounder. The breasts feel tender. The monthly period stops. You may even feel movements — fine, barely tangible, but unmistakably inner impulses. Everything points to a new life growing inside you. And then the examination. The ultrasound. The numbers in the blood. Nothing. No embryo. No fetus. Only your body, telling a story that has no equivalent in the language of biology.