I went to another gynecologist just to reassure myself, but when she went pale looking at my ultrasound and asked in a low voice, “Who handled your previous exams?”, I replied, “My husband, doctor… he’s a gynecologist too.” Then she turned off my screen and said, “I need to run tests on you right now. What I’m seeing shouldn’t be there.”It wasn’t the tone of her voice. It was the color of her face.My new gynecologist stopped moving the transducer, turned off the screen, and asked a question that chilled my blood.”Who followed your previous exams?””My husband,” I replied. “He’s a gynecologist too.””I need to test you right now. There’s something inside you that shouldn’t be there.”

Until that point, I kept telling myself that maybe I was only more sensitive because of the pregnancy. It was my first baby. I was seven months along. And I had the luck many women dream of: a husband who is a doctor, attentive, protective, always taking care of everything.My husband Ricardo controlled my vitamins, my diet, my schedules, my ultrasounds, even the temperature of the air conditioning at night. At first I mistook that for love. Then it started to look like surveillance.He insisted on doing all my exams in his own private practice. “I don’t want another man to examine you.” And I, in love, wanted to believe that this was romanticism, not control.