"I can feel it growing inside me, pushing against my organs. Some mornings, I can barely get up," Mariatu Koroma says, describing the fibroids that have dominated her life for over a decade.

Her story begins in 2012, when she met her fiancé. "His mother started to say, 'Why are you not conceived? Do you have something to do with your child?'" Mariatu recalls. "They urged me every time."

Desperate for answers, she found what seemed like hope in the market. "I met an old woman who was selling this native medicine. They said it was bad water. So I bought some quantity, I took it at home and I drank it."

The consequences were immediate and severe. "I was not able to stand, sit. I was just crying. I said, wow, what is going on? Is this pregnant woman going to come out or not? I was just crying."

Her friend urged her to seek medical help. "I went to Dr. King. She sent me to the corner of the hospital to do a scan. When we scanned me, we found out that I had fibroid. The child was down and the fibroid was up." Dr. King referred her to Dr. Thamba, who confirmed the diagnosis and enrolled her in monthly check-ups.

When her partner had to leave for three years, everyone pushed her to "get pregnant once and for all." But she knew the relationship's problems ran deeper. "I was very intentional," she says. "I made sure every time he was going to come, I had some sort of contraception, even against his own wish, against anybody's wish."

For years she managed on her own, even returning to school while raising her child. "After 3 or 4 years, I decided to return to school. I started attending school. I took care of my child. I did all the expenses." But her husband had already begun distancing himself. "Until one day, he realised himself. He started to give up something. He had already got married to another woman - his cousin." His family had orchestrated the marriage: "The family said that their son had already made it. They told him not to go outside. They gave him the wife of the family."

When her child fell ill, she found herself alone. "When I called him, my child was sick. My mum refused to comment. I was in this problem." Then came 2023's devastating blow. "I lost my child," she says, her voice dropping. "I cried. I cried. I lost hope."

The pain persists daily. "It's difficult for me to get up and run," she explains. "I'm feeling something down here. Too heavy." The weight affects everything - her movement, her work, her life.

Now she faces a staggering cost for surgery. "A woman just did her own," she says, referring to a recent operation that cost 20 million leones. She's joined a community savings group as her only hope. "We started saving. We are going to share out in August," she explains, though the amount may still fall short.

In her darkest moments after losing her child, she contemplated the unthinkable. "I wanted to do something to myself," she admits. "But I said no, I don't have something." Instead, she turned to prayer: "God, do something. I want to do this operation. I don't have money. I don't have a solution."

When asked about herself, Mariatu's introduction is simple: "I'm Mariatu Koroma." Yet her story speaks of a woman's resilience. "I know I must find a way," she says. "I cannot live like this forever."