Flora’s infertility

Flora’s infertility is the lasting bodily consequence of a clandestine abortion that failed to end her pregnancy. The doctor removed her ovaries, leaving her unable to have children, while the baby survived; the injury thus became inseparable from the secrecy and planned surrender surrounding the birth.

The Abortion and Its Consequences

Because abortion was prohibited throughout the country, Flora secretly gathered money and went to a doctor across the border who was known for performing the procedure. She believed it had worked because she was bleeding heavily and in pain. Instead, the doctor had removed her ovaries, damaging her internally and making her infertile, but the pregnancy continued despite the loss of blood and fluid.

Treatment and Concealment

Flora was too ill to hide what had happened when she returned home. Her mother took her to Nurse Hidalgo, who stopped the bleeding. Her mother was distressed, and Flora understood that she would not be allowed to raise the baby. The family planned to conceal the pregnancy until the birth and then give the child away; Flora was made to promise that she would tell no one, not even her father.

The Planned Surrender

Flora recalls her mother presenting the surviving pregnancy as a possible chance for things to go well from then on, despite the damage done to Flora’s body. When Flora raised the possibility of adoption, her mother rejected that description: the baby was to be handed over, not adopted. The distinction makes Flora’s infertility part of a wider family secret, linking a medical injury she could not undo to a child whose fate was decided for her.