I’m 35, married for 9 years. People around me think I’m “lucky” because my husband earns well, we live in a nice apartment, and I wear gold at weddings. But no one knows the pain I carry inside my body every single day.

I cannot become a mother. Doctors have tried, medicines have been taken, prayers whispered into temples and mosques — but nothing has worked. And because of this, my husband has slowly started hating me.

When I look into his eyes, I don’t see love anymore — only disappointment. Every festival, my in-laws taunt me: “What use is a woman if she cannot give children?” Do they think I am a machine? Do they think my worth is only in my womb?

At night, I cry silently into the pillow while he turns his back. Sometimes I wonder, what is more painful — not having a child, or being treated as less than human by the man you love?

If motherhood is destiny, then why was I chosen for this curse?