Such a haunting story told with understanding and compassion. It highlights the crucial importance of women being able to control their fertility.

Without access to birth control a woman's own body can be weaponized against her.

Being forced to bear children, trapped in a social web without escape, becomes a form of imprisonment. Escape becomes possible only by abandoning your children, your babies. Very few women are ever willing to do that.

My maternal great grandmother had 22 pregnancies, 19 of which were live births. Her WHOLE life was being pregnant, taking care of her children, and taking care of a husband who by all accounts was an evil bastard.

That's what being a 19th century "farm wife" was really like. What you are describing sounds exactly the same.