Pregnancy 1996

In 1983/1984 Tim and Ilona sat next to each other in 4th grade of a high school in Zeist, the Netherlands. They already fell in love but neither dared to express his/her feelings to the other. As a result they spent the year as very close friends, with a lot of fun but nothing more and nothing less. A poetry project at school seemed a good opportunity to make a move: everyone in class had to write a poem or create an illustration to go with one of the poems. The completed poems and illustrations were later combined and published in a booklet (limited edition). During this project Ilona wrote the poem which many years later featured on Jem’s birth announcement card (see above) and Tim chose to make an illustration specially for this poem. None of them could ever have expected that both the poem and the illustration were made with the other person in mind. And so the booklet was created but still no avances were made. Ilona has kept and treasured the booklet ever since....

After a happy year together, Tim was expelled from school and Ilona was secretly inconsolable for a very long time. They did see each other occasionally, but the friendship faded. In the following years nothing else remained but a special place in their hearts for the other one. On a few occasions they met but always in the company of others: at a party, at a graduation ceremony or during a visit to mutual friends from the past. During these years they were both involved in long lasting relationships, including everything that this implies.

At the beginning of 1993 Ilona heard ‘through the grapevine’ that Tim had moved to Amsterdam just as she had done a couple of years earlier. She decided to take the plunge and contacted him. As a result they spent a very nice evening together but still not a word was said about feelings from the past even though these feelings grew stronger again during this reunion. Both were caught up in relationships that were coming to an end, so there was plenty to talk about without having to stir up old feelings. So, when the night came, they both ended up in their own beds just as they were supposed to.

Six months later, the next time they met, the situation was completely different. Ilona was single again and Tim got himself entangled in a holiday fling that had, as he himself said, not much of a future. After a big bottle of red migraine wine the truth just had to come out and it did! The following evening and night were very clarifying for both of them and we can establish that Ilona moved in that night never to leave again.

(With special thanks to Tita for helping me with the translation of this part!)

	3 more weeks to go...
a boy?
	a girl?