Female Sterilization

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay, this is for any woman who has been sterilized. This includes not just Tubal Ligations, but anyone who has used other methods such as Quinacrine or Uterine Balloon Therapy or Hysterectomy.

I have done a lot of technical/medical research on sterilization. As of yesterday, my doc and I decided to begin the path of finding someone to do the procedure. So, now I am looking to find out first-hand accounts from women who have been sterilized.

The sorts of things I am looking for:

~Why did you choose to be sterilized?
~When did you choose to get sterilized?
~How long have you been sterilized (approximately)?
~How did you choose which form of sterilization and which did you go with?
~What was your experience in trying to find a doctor to do the procedure?
~What was your experience with the procedure itself?
~Do you have any regrets? If so, what are they?

Thanks a bunch, ladies, I really appreciate it!!

[sub]Disclaimer I have always known I didn’t want kids. I decided at 16 that I wanted a sterilization. I am now 21. My mind has never swayed one bit, not under any hypothetical situations, not for any hypothetical reasons. If I am old enough to want or have kids, then I am old enough to know I don’t want them or won’t have them. I don’t want years and years of dealing with temporary forms of Birth Control when I can take care of it one fell swoop.
I am NOT looking for criticisms or patronizations. I am simply looking for personal experiences. I would appreciate it if we could stick to that. [/sub]

:slight_smile:

2

You might have quite a time of it finding a physician willing to do the procedure.

I have endometriosis, which causes me horrific pain. At 23, I decided to hell with living with this, I’m going to take care of this problem permenantly! However, I wasn’t able to find a doctor willing to perfrom a hysterectomy. They all told me that I was too young and might change my mind about wanting children. Most of them wouldn’t even LISTEN to me I left their offices enraged at they way they patronized me, and pooh-poohed the notion that I might be intelligent, mature, and self-aware enough to know my own mind.

Good luck with finding a willing pysician. Best bet would be a younger, female doctor. I don’t wish to sound sexist, but in my experience, I have gotten the most response, sympathy and understanding from young, women doctors.

3

With regard to doctors, so much depends on your circumstances. Had my tubes tied at 40 - no objection from the doc. Probably would have been different at 20 or even 30. Also, I did have children.

I chose that method to keep the natural hormones flowing for as long as possible.

If I’d had it done 20 years earlier, I’m certain that I would have had regrets - or at least second thoughts, later.

4

I have nothing to offer but good wishes.

I love kids, but the world has enough of them already. I wish fewer people felt that insatiable need to breed. :slight_smile:

5

oh, and have you seen this?:

http://bitch.shutdown.com/tubal.html

Funny shit…

6

Questions seeking other’s opinions are best served in In My Humble Opinion. I’ll move the thread over there for you.

7

If the Better Half hadn’t kindly offered to have a vasectomy, I’d have had my tubes tied, too.

“voluntary sterilizaton” brought up 7,620 Google hits. Just a sampling. You have the right to sterilization if you want to, but it’s difficult in the U.S., if you haven’t had any children yet. As the “My Body” writer points out, http://web.missouri.edu/~c489011/mybody.html

Most of the Google hits seem to deal with Third World women–the U.S. doesn’t seem to have any problem with Korean or Puerto Rican women undergoing voluntary sterilization before they’ve had any kids. [insert emoticon of extreme cynicism]

http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6multi/pg/ca3.htm

AVSC is mostly concerned with Third World women, but their info is still applicable.
http://www.avsc.org/informed/italk.html

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/rt21/race/HARTMANNCh13.html

And don’t overlook the obvious.

And this http://www.hli.org/issues/sterilization/other/str1.html website is amusingly obnoxious.

Doncha just love it when somebody tells ya not only that you’re going to Hell, but that you’re draggin’ the rest of the world down there with ya? :rolleyes:

I take it you’re not Catholic? :smiley:

8

Most gynecologists, even young women most likely to be sympathetic to your valid concerns, would feel uncomfortble doing a vaginal hysterectomy on a girl in their 20s. I feel sorry that they patronized you and worse if it is true they really did not listen to you, which is not excusable. The fact is, though, many women who have and want babies in their 30s feel the way that you do now. These feelings can be altered by circumstances, depression, age, problems with periods or other gynecological disorders – there are other ways of preventing kids and dealing with endometriosis that are worth trying first. That said, it is ultimately your decision and you should certqinly have the right to a vag hyst if you are aware of all of the implications. They should certainly have fewer concerns about doing a tubal ligation. I would be interested in hearing more about your situation.

9

Dr_Paprika, my illness has been a nightmare. I’ve gone to at least a dozen doctors. A few shrugged and told me to live with it, one prescribed me heavy-dosage arthritis medication, one suggested I have a baby because that might “clear it up.” This was when I was fourteen. One told me that it was all in my head, and I was just trying to get attention, that it couldn’t be THAT bad.

When I was younger, one of them placed me on birth control (I wasn’t sexually active at the time) and said that that should fix it, and was actually a bit miffed when I reported that it did not. The pills also had the side-effect of making me very nasueous. I actually had to ARGUE with this doctor to make her change the type of pill. This pill also did not help.

Every month, I writhed in screaming agony. I’m now on Depro-Prevera which dulls it a bit, but has the unfortunate side effect of throwing my cycle out of whack, so I never know when the cramps will hit. They are not as bad now, but they’re still bad enough to make me wish for menopause. I still take the arthritis medication.

My mother also has it, and compares it to giving birth once a month. Every woman in my family suffers from endometriosis. My aunts have all had hysterectomies, and have no problems now. I envy them.

10

Melpomene
Well, being male, I can’t answer your op, but {{{{{Melpomene}}}}} hugs anyway, just because.

I knew at an early age also that I didn’t want to have kids, and got a vasectomy in my 20s. Had to provide sperm samples to prove I could produce children before they were willing to perform the surgery to insure I wouldn’t.

Yes, doctors will raise all sorts of objections, but at least it sounds like your doctor is on your side which should help.

Now I’ll hope some of the ladies here who’ve been though some of those procedures themselves will chime in with the answers to your OP.

-Doug

11

ENdometriosis can be really nasty. Most of the women who have cases as bad as yours seems to be say they wish they had their hysterectomies years earlier. The birth control pill is a reasonable starting point but if it doesn’t work their shouldn’t be hesitation about trying somehting different. Have you had the distribution confirmed laproscopically?

12

Hey, Melpomene.

I chose sterilization as early as I found out it was covered by insurance. :wink:

To address yer questions:

Not a fan of children; never wanted to have any, never wanted to be one, never liked being around them. And never bought the argument that I would like a child if it was my own.

I hate admitting to carelessness, but I went with sterlization because I don’t often practice safe sex or regular, temporary birth control. (No lectures about STDs, please – to me, pregnancy is by far the nastiest STD there is.)

I got pregnant when I was 16 and ignorant, and again when I was 24 and careless. After the second pregnancy, I figured I better take more long-term action. I had no doubts with either pregnancy that I did not want children and that I had no problems other than financial about ending the pregnancy.

I actually was leaning toward thoughts of a sex change before the sterilization. After the sterilization, I was so relieved not to have to worry about my body betraying me anymore that the desire for a sex change just evaporated. I realized that it wasn’t the body as female that bothered me so much: It was the body as female and pregnant against my will that bothered me. Made me a much saner person to be relieved of that fear.

Also, I’ve always been extremely sensitive to the hormones in birth-control pills. No matter what type of pill I tried, I got extremely moody. Given that I’m not particularly calm when I’m not moody, extremely moody is a Very Bad Thing.

When I was 24, as soon as I could after terminating the second pregnancy. (I’m 33 now.)

9 years, going on 10.

I went to the doctor my gynecologist told me would perform the operation. I asked about the different methods he did. He performed various types of tubal ligation. See these sites for info about the different types of tubal ligation:

[ul][li]http://www.mjbovo.com/Contracept/Instruct-SterileF.htm[/li][li]http://www.estronaut.com/a/tubal_ligation_facts.htm[/li][li]http://www.plannedparenthood.org/BIRTH-CONTROL/allabouttubal.htm[/li][li]http://www.drkoop.com/nancy/tubal.html[/li][/ul]

I didn’t really need a hysterectomy, so he wouldn’t do that. Which I suppose worked out okay, because I don’t have to take hormones nowadays to compensate. However, it does mean that I’m still subject to PMS and menstruation. :frowning:

My gynecologist referred me to the local doc who performed sterlizations regularly. She didn’t think he’d go for it, because I was “so young”. Feh.

This was the first voluntary surgery I ever had. Looking back on it, it was pretty standard, procedure-wise: Show up at hospital, answer the same 10 questions for 10 different people, get wheeled in, get knocked out, and wake up in pain.

Now that I’ve been through other surgeries, I can look back and say that I was handled like a piece of meat and I’d like to go back and smack the whole damn group of them upside the head.

Neither the doctor nor any of his staff took the time to explain to me what the surgery would really be like for me as a patient. They explained the procedure, as in what they would do, but not what effects this would have on me. I ended up in a phenomenal amount of pain, so much that I still remember it nearly 10 years later. I posted about it here.

The doctor provided no aftercare whatsoever – they sent me home, and that was it.

I regret that I didn’t know enough to do the proper research. Nowadays, I ask a lot more questions. And I’m much more assertive, rather than falling into that “doctor knows best” mentality.

I regret that I never sent that doctor a letter telling him what a complete wanker he was, and copying the local medical board.

I regret that I didn’t punch out the nurse during the following conversation immediately before surgery:

[Anesthesiologist]Is there any chance you might be pregnant?
[Me]Well, yes, I suppose it’s possible. Why?
[Nurse]Anesthesia is bad for babies.

Argh! I’m there getting a tubal ligation, you twit! If a baby’s health was my primary concern, I probably wouldn’t be doing that.

I regret that I didn’t have the money to pay cash for the procedure so I could pick my own doctor. The surgeries I’ve had where I paid cash and picked my own doctor have consistently been more pleasant and educational than those paid for by insurance. (One notable exception: When I had to have an emergency appendectomy at Seattle’s Providence hospital, I was very impressed from beginning to end. Great folks there.)

I regret and resent that I had to become pregnant a second time before any of my gynecology providers had the courtesy to even mention sterilization as an option. IMO, every form of birth control should be public knowledge and publicly accessible to anyone of breeding age.

…

Whew, I can go on and on. If you’d like more info, e-mail me.

Best wishes.

Jeyen

13

I realize that this doesn’t really answer your question, but if you do have difficulty finding someone willing to do the procedure, you might try getting an IUD as a fallback position. The copper ones are good for 10 years, and there is no maintenance. You might have better luck finding someone willing to do the procedure at that point. (Obviously this doesn’t help Lissa, but it might help the OP).

As far as actual experiences, my mother had a tubal ligation at age 30, and managed to get pregnant at age 50. The doctors are still trying to figure that one out. My father had some chemical exposure around the same time, so they think maybe the ligation didn’t work, but she didn’t get pregnant because his sperm count was low.

My understanding is that nowadays, tubal ligation is a very easy procedure. If birth control is the goal, that’s probably the way to go (despite my mother’s experience).

14

First off, let me say that I am very sorry for not checking in yesterday. For some very bizarre and aggravating reason, every time I tried to get here, my browser told me it couldn’t find the server! I tried all day long! It drove me nuts! I’m just glad to be back, now. :smiley:

manhattan: Thanks for moving the thread. I’ll keep that in mind for next time I have a similar question. :slight_smile:

Lissa: Best of luck to you. Endo is terrible. I have 2 older women friends-of-the-family who have it. I also was being checked out for possibly having it at the end of last year. Keep on pushing, you will get it one day.

oldbroad: Love your nick :wink: and thank you for your POV!

tsarina, dublos: I appreciate the good wishes, thanks :slight_smile:

duck duck goose: Thank you for the links! I actually had a couple of those bookmarked! No, I’m not Catholic (thank God) but my SO comes from a very strictly Catholic family, so if the relationship heads where we would like it to go, I will have to face this sort of criticism on a regular basis. Blegh!

Dr_paprika: Thanks to you too, for your input. I hope that Lissa may find it helpful to her situation, as well.

jeyen: Loved your post. Thanks a mil for your story! Those details will be stored up in the filing portion of my brain for future reference. I appreciate it. Thank you.

ENugent: Yes, I know that I could throw in an IUD and wait 10 years, but that’s 10 more years of possibly getting pregnant. I couldn’t handle that kind of stress and anxiety. Per your mom, I do hope that medical advances have made that less of a problem now than it was 20+ years ago. :wink:

15

After getting pregnant twice before I was old enough to legally buy a beer, I got a copper IUD. They are actually 99.7% effective in preventing pregnancy, which is as good as tubal ligation is, I think. (The only things that are 100% are hysterectomy & abstinence, that I’m aware of.) They are great because you only have to think about them once a month, when you check & make sure it’s still there. They don’t mess with your hormones & make you all moody or nauseous or make your migraines worse or give you yeast infections. Sadly, mine got dislodged somehow & I had to get it taken out because it was scraping my insides up every month, but I’m thinking of getting another one. I’ve HAD IT with the side effects from the Pill.

16

I had my tubes tied after my second child was born just over two years ago. My husband and I decided that two was all we could handle. We wanted to be sure the kids got the best of everything and with two we feel we can give them the best. So since I had to have a c-section anyway I just went ahead and told my doctor to tie my tubes while she was in there. She argued with me and told me I was too young (I was 26) to decide and that I might change my mind later. I told her I had made up my mind, that I had thought it out and if she didn’t want to do it I would find someone else to do it. She agreed but she was mad about it. I decided on a tubal because I heard it was less painful than anything else and since she had me cut open anyway I figured that was the way to go. During the procedure I was numb but felt alot of pushing and pulling and felt I couldn’t breathe. I found out later it was because they had to pull out some of my organs to reach my tubes. Since then I have had minor backaches which my doctor told me was a side-effect of the tubal. That’s about the worst thing that has happened to me. I don’t regret getting mine done. I am thrilled I had enough sense to do it when I did instead of waiting and having another baby. I don’t have to worry about protection or counting days until my period. Life is good. I don’t want any more children so it’s not a problem for me to not be able to have any more. And I do plan on getting a hysterectomy in a few years, I am tired of periods.
I had a friend who had her tubes tied at 21 because she didn’t want any children. Her doctor argued with her but she told him honestly that she wouldn’t make a good mother and rather than abort unwanted children she just wanted to make sure she would never be in that position. She’s 31 now and has never regretted the choice she made. I applaud her decision and every other woman who knows she doesn’t want children and is mature enough to try to do something about it.