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This past May, Marlena Stell, a patient with symptoms nearly identical to Porsha’s, arrived at another hospital in the system, Houston Methodist The Woodlands.

“I assumed they would do whatever to get the bleeding to stop,” Stell said.

Stell says that instead, she was sent home and told to “let the miscarriage take its course.”

Her father, William Robert “Rush” Stell, was a farmer and sheet metal worker.

In late June, reporting this story about the history of women’s sports in Australia, I spoke with Marion Stell, a historian at the University of Queensland, about what at that time seemed like muted enthusiasm for the tournament, then around a month away.