The courtroom smelled like burnt coffee, damp coats, and the heavy silence of a place where life-changing decisions were made for people who had no power to stop them.

I sat at the defendant’s table with one hand resting on my eight-month-pregnant belly, feeling my baby shift beneath my ribs, completely unaware of the disaster unfolding outside my body. I had been awake since four that morning. My back ached, my nerves burned, and the dry heat in the room made it difficult to breathe.

My attorney, found through legal aid, was kind but exhausted. Two weeks earlier, he had told me with genuine regret that the prenuptial agreement was nearly impossible to fight. The odds were against me.

I had twelve dollars in my bank account, no  family, nowhere to go, and a baby due in five weeks.

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