I grew up as a girl in a very conservative, Catholic area and part of a Catholic family, attending church and religious schools. There was a huge emphasis on purity culture, abstinence, and keeping pregnancies as a punishment for failing to uphold those expectations if you were to become pregnant. I remember myself internalizing a lot of those negative beliefs -- and in college, getting an opportunity to learn from other women a fundamentally different way to be that was steeped in compassion, love, and joy. The hardest part of deconstructing was sitting with the fact I'd been "set up" to hate myself and feel inferior by the people purporting to love or value me. Because of the mentors I met who modeled love and compassion for me, I was able to make a reproductive choice for myself that came from a place of love, compassion, and centering joy for myself. I want to pay that experience forward to allow everyone to make a choice that comes from a place of love towards themselves.