Eva's pregnancy

Eva's pregnancy is both a longed-for possibility and the consequence of a reproductive deception. After years in which fertility treatment made conception seem unlikely, Eva becomes pregnant by Steef during a partner-swapping encounter arranged without the men's knowledge. The positive test briefly turns her desire for a child into hope and a way out of her marriage; once the pregnancy is revealed, it becomes the focus of a bitter dispute over bodily autonomy, biological fatherhood, and the child's future.

Background: A Child Desired, Then Deferred

Eva and Peter begin trying for a child with the conviction that their decision has given them a fresh start. They have sex frequently, imagine the baby they might have conceived, and interpret bodily signs as possible evidence of pregnancy. Repeated Predictor pregnancy tests and bleeding repeatedly end that hope. After a year, their general practitioner initially sees no cause for alarm and recommends temperature tracking rather than referral. Eva takes her temperature every morning, and sex becomes organized around the days when conception seems most likely.

The procedure changes the meaning of intimacy between them. Their sexual encounters become concentrated around ovulation, while the rest of the month brings little sex. Peter tells Eva that he wants a child with her but dislikes the mechanical routine and the prospect of conceiving through medical intervention. Eva, whose desire for a child has come to dominate her thoughts, feels abandoned by his reluctance. She argues that investigation might reveal a simple, treatable problem. They eventually see a gynecologist: Eva's examination and scans show no apparent obstruction, cysts, or inflammation, and her temperature chart indicates regular ovulation. Peter's semen tests, however, show too few sperm and poor movement. The couple is told that medical assistance may be their remaining route to parenthood.

The Concealed Plan and Conception

Later, Eva and Rebecca devise another route. They decide not to consult Peter and Steef about the possibility of conception. Instead, they plan a partner-swapping encounter around Eva's next ovulation, with the intention of trying again if the first attempt fails. When Eva asks about contraception, Rebecca suggests that a condom might leak. The plan therefore depends not on the men's informed agreement to attempt conception, but on concealing that intention from them.

During sex with Steef, Eva deliberately tries to ensure that he ejaculates inside her. She keeps him close, continues when he asks her to wait, and uses her body to prevent the encounter from stopping before he ejaculates. The scene's physical intimacy is real, but its reproductive purpose is hidden from him. Afterward, Steef notices semen at the condom's base and realizes it has leaked. His alarm breaks the sexual atmosphere: he says that this has never happened to him before and that he normally takes precautions even beyond condom use. Peter responds with anger and points to his own infertility, while Rebecca tries to calm the group by saying that pregnancy is not immediate or certain.

Upstairs, Eva tells Rebecca that she believes this was her only chance and fears that Peter and Steef will never agree to repeat the encounter. She is frightened by Steef's expression when he saw the damaged condom, yet she remains fixed on the possibility of having a child. The next morning, Steef brings her a box of emergency contraception from a night pharmacy. He apologizes for his reaction and describes a bond between them, while insisting that he does not want another child: Sem was conceived against his will, and Steef sees himself as too unstable and too attached to his freedom to be a father again. Eva tells him she is not pregnant. Later, when a pregnancy test confirms that she is, that reassurance is revealed as false.

The Test and Eva's Decision

The positive result arrives after Eva has lived for years with grief and disappointed hope. With Rebecca beside her, she watches the Predictor test and sees two blue lines. She is overwhelmed by happiness and fear, and Rebecca embraces her. Sem, present in his buggy, begins crying for his mother; Rebecca comforts him while telling Eva that they should wait seven weeks before telling the men. The scene makes the new pregnancy tangible while emphasizing how much remains unresolved: Eva knows the result, but Peter and Steef do not yet know either the pregnancy or the circumstances of conception.

Eva calculates that the odds are uncertain. She considers the chance of conception, the possibility of miscarriage, and the damage already unfolding around her: Peter is unhappy, Steef is angry, and her marriage is approaching disaster. She nevertheless refuses to intervene. The pregnancy becomes the center of a private imagined future, set against the consequences she is leaving to happen around her. When Rebecca urges her to consider staying, Eva says she must go. She believes Steef may react dangerously to the pregnancy and that, if she remains, he may demand that she end it. More decisively, she sees the child as a reason to leave a home and marriage that have come to feel crushing. She packs photographs and keepsakes of Lieve alongside practical belongings, carrying her earlier loss into this new and uncertain beginning.

Away from Peter, Eva treats pregnancy as evidence that her body can conceive naturally and as a restoration of confidence after infertility. She takes folic acid and studies her still-flat abdomen, imagining the embryo, which she estimates to be no larger than a coffee bean. She fears miscarriage but insists to herself that this pregnancy will continue. She is certain the baby is a girl and imagines finding a father for her child. At the same time, she tries to separate biological fatherhood from emotional parenthood: Steef supplied the sperm, she reasons, but will not be the child's real father. Her repeated memories of their kiss and sexual encounter trouble that distinction. She attempts to dismiss her desire for him as a response to the situation rather than love, even while acknowledging how persistently he returns to her thoughts.

Disclosure and Conflict Over Fatherhood

When Peter visits Rebecca and learns that Eva has left, his distress and aggression lead Steef to force an explanation from Rebecca. Steef then names the central grievance: he believes Eva has taken his semen with Rebecca's consent. He calls what they did criminal and insists that he does not want the child. His anger is not only about the prospect of fatherhood; he objects to having his reproductive choice made for him and to being treated as though others can decide what his body and future are for.

The pregnancy's meaning changes again when Peter confronts Steef at the cottage. With a gun pointed at Steef, Peter hears the plea to think of the child and the assertion that he and Eva are having one. Eva confirms that they are having a child together. Peter's response reveals that he has understood the child as his, while the biological fact is that Steef fathered the pregnancy. The realization that Eva is carrying Steef's baby intensifies Peter's revulsion, and he interprets the couple's claim that the child is his as another deception. Yet when he is poised to shoot Steef, the thought of a child prevents him from pulling the trigger. The pregnancy does not resolve the conflict or establish who will raise the child; it interrupts one act of violence while making the competing claims around the unborn baby impossible to ignore.