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By: Jill Sheffield with Maz Kessler; Originally posted on Huffington Post

When I was 27 years old, I met a young mother who became one of my greatest inspirations and left a lasting impression on my life.

I was an idealistic young volunteer at a family planning clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. One morning, a woman my own age walked in asking for contraceptives. She carried a newborn baby on her front, and another, older baby on her back. She told me that she had already been pregnant 11 times, but only had six living children.

I was immediately struck by the fact that although we were the same age, I had so many choices that she did not. Back then, Kenya, like so many other countries, required a woman to have her husband's signature in order to access contraceptives. Read more...