The colour blue is a trigger for Lutfiye Kavci, a reminder of the day her then-husband tried to end her life.
In a visible sign of her strength, she stood to confront that "evil" man in the Victorian Supreme Court wearing a blue headscarf.
She also wore an enamel white ribbon pinned to her jacket as she vowed to speak out for those who didn't survive.
“I was going to be another number, another woman who lost her life to domestic violence and got forgotten,” Ms Kavci said.
She was introduced to Mahmut Cigercioglu through a mutual friend in January 2020 and they married later that month.
When she fell pregnant later that year she applied for his visa to join her in Australia to be expedited in time for their son's June 2021 birth.
Almost immediately upon his arrival, his controlling tendencies began to show.
He demanded money from her and her family, complained their house was in the wrong area and rejected gifts, including a bassinet from her friend, because they didn’t need them.
When he told her she couldn't be a proper wife or mother and wasn't useful for anything, she left him, knowing her son didn't deserve to be raised by an abusive parent.
When he approached her on October 15, 2021, Cigercioglu said he didn't want to hurt her but she knew differently.
“You put thought into how you wanted to end my life,” she told him in a pre-sentence hearing on Friday.
But she saw the knife up his sleeve and was able to fight him off as he repeatedly stabbed her in the chest, arms and abdomen.
As medical staff silently re-dressed her wounds in hospital she was shocked by the sheer number of injuries he left her with.
"There's one there too?" she would ask nurses, who said nothing in response.
"They had no words to say to me," she said.
Ms Kavci had dreamed of breastfeeding for two years, so when nurses said her milk would likely dry up she stubbornly persisted with a breast pump to get enough milk to sustain her son until she could go home.
At home, she battled pain and discomfort to breastfeed for another four months.
When one doctor suggested she switch to formula, she found a new doctor.
"It was painful but I had the determination," she said.
After another four months, she had a good cry and let it go.
Two years on, Ms Kavci is still working on finding herself.
And while she's a stronger woman now, looking tough from the outside doesn't mean she doesn't struggle.
She has to recover not only from her physical injuries but from Cigercioglu's control, his verbal abuse, his sick words, the way he looked at her and used her body.
"I am still here," she said.
Cigercioglu, who was found guilty of attempted murder, will be sentenced in December by Justice Mandy Fox.
The judge heard on Friday that as a non-citizen, Cigercioglu would likely be deported after serving his sentence.
Lawyer David Cronin said his client maintained an unrealistic belief that he would be able to stay in Australia and some day have a relationship with his son.
“The fact he’ll be removed from the country and therefore not have a relationship with his son is going to weigh heavily on him when that realisation hits,” he said.
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