Peter and Eva's fertility treatment journey turns their wish for a child into a prolonged negotiation with medical limits, bodily effort, and grief. Peter's male-factor infertility leads them from timed attempts at home through repeated procedures; after the death of Lieve, the donor-conceived child they had hoped to raise, the pursuit of parenthood becomes inseparable from mourning and from conflict over who gets to decide whether to try again.

Testing and Timed Attempts

Peter initially resisted seeing a gynecologist. After a year of trying, a doctor advised the couple that not becoming pregnant within that period was not, by itself, cause for alarm, and suggested tracking Eva's temperature to estimate ovulation. The recommendation made intimacy part of a schedule: Eva measured her temperature every morning at half past six, before the alarm, and recorded it. A rise of 0.2 degrees Celsius indicated that ovulation might be near, prompting the couple to time their attempts around it. The routine was organized around conception and the need to get to work, rather than around unhurried closeness.

The couple eventually received a referral. Five weeks later, a gynecologist examined Eva and found no apparent abnormality. Her temperature records indicated monthly ovulation, and an ultrasound showed no blockages, cysts, or inflammation in her uterus or ovaries. Blood was taken from both partners, and Peter was asked to return for semen testing after five days without ejaculation. A second test followed three weeks later. The results were consistent: Peter had too few sperm, and those present had limited movement. The explanation shifted the problem away from an identifiable condition in Eva and toward the limits of Peter's fertility; the couple were told that medical treatment was their remaining route to a child.

Repeated Treatment and Its Limit

The treatment history eventually encompassed nine IVF attempts, four ICSI treatments, and five KID procedures. The numbers mark not a single intervention but a sustained effort, one in which Eva underwent the physical treatment and the pain and loss while Peter understood his own part as paying and holding her hand. That imbalance informs his later refusal to continue: he could not bear to watch her healthy body endure further treatment because of his infertility.

The birth and death of Lieve changed what those procedures meant. Lieve was Eva and Peter's child, but she was conceived with a donor and was not genetically Peter's daughter. Peter says that he hated the unknown donor, a feeling that makes the distinction between loving a child and being her genetic father part of the couple's grief. After Lieve's death, Peter concluded that the repeated treatments had reached a boundary. He and Eva had barely survived the loss, and with their baby they buried the dream that treatment would bring them the family they had wanted. Eva, however, still wanted to continue trying. Her tearful question about why he would not go on reopened a disagreement they had discussed for thousands of hours. She called him a coward and a quitter; Peter saw stopping as a way to prevent her from bearing still more consequences of his infertility.

Grief and Uneven Recovery

The cemetery keeps the loss present in ordinary life. Lieve is buried in the children's section beneath a white fieldstone bearing a message of lasting remembrance, among forget-me-nots. The plot is close to sports fields, where children's voices carry across the grounds. Peter describes the contrast between that everyday sound and the sorrow of the burial place as especially painful.

Eva's grief appears in gestures as much as in speech. At Lieve's grave she removes withered flowers and avoids Peter's eyes, seemingly afraid that speaking will release an overwhelming cry. Peter waters the forget-me-nots, strokes her back, and holds her hand. He also recognizes his jealousy of the intensity of Eva's grief for the child. His reaction is not presented as a lack of awareness: he calls attention to his own shame and to the force of the bond between mother and dead child. Elsewhere, Eva insists that she remains a mother who loves Lieve, though she never truly had the chance to know her. The journey therefore does not resolve loss into a simple decision to move on; the grave, the remembered birth, and the couple's different responses continue to shape what parenthood means to them.

Peter later says that the grief has worn down from being present day and night. He and Eva have made new friends, he has returned to music and motorcycling, and their life seems to have found a new balance. Yet visiting the place associated with their suffering brings the past back into view. Recovery and remembrance coexist: renewed routines offer room to live, but they do not make the loss disappear.

A Different Route and a New Conflict

The couple's later effort to conceive takes shape through their relationship with Steef and Rebecca. The proposal is described as gentle pressure: Eva is to calculate her next ovulation, and the four are to meet then, repeating the attempt if it does not work. Before a planned partner-swapping evening, Steef stresses that the participants should agree on how far they are willing to go. He and Rebecca explain that couples set different boundaries, from limited sexual contact to full partner-swapping; Rebecca is open to bisexual contact, while Steef is not. The arrangement thus combines an explicit conversation about consent and limits with a reproductive aim.

After a sexual encounter, Steef brings a box of morning-after pills from a night pharmacy and describes the intimacy between himself and the person he addresses as more than a purely physical connection, while denying that it is romantic love. The later narrative gives the reproductive arrangement a consequence beyond the evening itself: Eva experiences possible pregnancy symptoms, though she initially considers pregnancy very unlikely and hopes that it would mean another chance. When Peter learns that Eva is pregnant, he accuses the others of having taken his semen, adding that his wife had consented. His accusation makes genetic fatherhood and consent the final conflict in this journey. The attempt to have a child has moved from medical procedures undertaken by the couple together to a conception Peter experiences as a violation, even as the earlier infertility and loss remain the circumstances behind the plan.