After ten long years of trying to have a baby, you start to feel like the universe is punishing you. That’s exactly how I felt. Ten years of hope, heartbreak, and hospital hallways. Ten years of specialists saying things with gentle voices like: “We should manage expectations.” I memorized every waiting room. I could list the side effects of fertility medication like I was reading from a recipe. Through all of it, my husband Alex stayed strong. He held my hand during every painful procedure and whispered into my ear:

I’m Claire, 27F, and this year I went to a wedding that should have broken me. Instead, it became the night I finally took my life back. If you’ve ever wondered what you’d do after a betrayal that rips your world apart, let me tell you what happened when I decided I wasn’t going to be the quiet, heartbroken girl in the corner anymore. I still can’t wrap my head around how my life turned into this nightmare-slash-movie. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be standing

The cashier laughed at her. Not a nervous laugh or a polite chuckle—no, this was sharp, cruel, and real. I was standing in line, watching a tiny old woman tremble as she tried to count out enough pennies to buy a loaf of bread. I’d been alive for sixty-seven years, spent forty-three of them riding motorcycles across highways and deserts, seen fights, accidents, heartbreak—but I had never felt anger rise in me that fast. Her hands shook so badly that the coins slipped from her fingers and rolled across the