The swelling in my abdomen had subsided after surgery. My energy had improved, and I had begun to recognize the woman looking back at me.
She was not the nineteen-year-old who had married Michael.
She was not the frightened woman who had spent eighteen years repeating a sentence she no longer understood.
She was someone who had learned that her body was not a confession, that a medical problem was not a moral failure, and that a marriage certificate did not give another person ownership over her choices.
I never received a guarantee that I would become a mother.
My doctors explained that any future decision about fertility would depend on my health, my circumstances, and what I wanted for my life. I still had difficult days when I wondered what might have happened if we had sought help earlier.
But I no longer believed that my worth depended on whether I could give birth.
