I've been to 15 doctors and they all shot me down and drowned in bingoes. I stated my case about how I need a permanent form of birth control and how all these temporary fixes just won't do. I explained how I want to go to college and have a career in environmental conservation and how I'll never add to the already bloated population. And to placate them in said I would adopt if anything. Most of the responses I got to adoption was "it's so different when it's your own, and wouldnt you want your own instead?" and asked about my fiance and i said he was deadset childfree as well. That was fucking unprofessional, what the fuck does my fiance have a say in this? I mean to the doctors that is.

I'm 19 and I'm dead set I'll never in a million years want kids, I'd rather die first and in don't say that lightly.

What can I do? I'm desperate, I'm sick of being on the pill and don't want any foreign object or shots either.

Why the hell won't they listen to me? What's wrong with them? Also is there a doctor you guys know that will tie or remove my tubes?

Thanks.

Squid, it depends on where you are... I am in Canada and I do know of a doctor here, he did mine. I know it's hard, they would rather have you pay for an expensive birth control and have it shoved inside of you (and I swear, have it fail) than give you a permanent solution. No matter how much pain you are in from it, or other side effects it may cause.

I had an IUD before I got sterilized and I was in so much pain I was doubled over cramping, migraines, fatigue. There were many days out of a month that I was not able to function. After surgery, I felt so much better and have been improving since!


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They are having children for selfish and narcissistic reasons, or are simply irresponsible. Funny... Those are the terms often used to describe the CF

~Live, Laugh, Love~

I think it's a combination of a couple things: the belief that all women will change their minds, and if women really are vehemently against having kids, a permanent solution is much less money for doctors in the long run compared to temporary birth control options. Pills, implants, shots, IUDs... these all get replaced anywhere from once a month to once every ten years, so if they just keep you on those forever, they'll keep making money and eventually you'll "see the light," start wanting kids and then they can suck money out of you for all the various tests and treatments that entails. So they're really not interested in you or what you want to do with your body unless it's what will fatten their wallets the most.

I'm beginning to think that the only way a woman can get sterilized anymore is if she shoots herself in the uterus and needs an emergency hysterectomy... and even then, doctors will fight tooth and nail to save that sacred organ. If there was a way to preserve uteri and grow fetuses in them as independent incubators, I don't even think doctors would try to save that many women's lives since the baby oven seems to be the only part of a woman that they care about.

Obviously, not all doctors are like this, but most are. I asked about sterilization a couple years ago and my gyno told me that no doctor will do it for me because they'd feel bad if I changed my mind (which was potentially code word for "they wouldn't want you to sue them"). Bullshit they would. If I changed my mind, then it'd be my problem, not theirs. I wish doctors would just shut the fuck up and do their goddamned jobs. There's hundreds of millions of people in the US alone - they aren't going to run out of breeders to tend to by sterilizing the few thousand CF women.

The childfree subreddit has a list of resources, so look there for a CF-friendly doctor that others have had luck with.

I prepared a binder of research: pros and cons of different methods and my conclusions, studies on regret (lowest among women who have never had children), and arguments about bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom. I was firm in stating that I wanted a solution which would be effective even if my relationship ended or if I was raped, therefore it was unacceptable to push for a vasectomy instead. I explained that I did not want the burden of having to regularly renew my contraceptives or the pain of longer-term solutions such as IUDs. What I did not do was talk about how much I hate the idea of reproducing because I didn't want to be dismissed as "emotional." I did not offer the sop of adoption but simply re-iterated that I had done my research (which showed lowest regret for people like me) and had put more thought into my reproductive decisions than most.

Of course I was older than you and this no doubt helped significantly.

The fact is that you're dealing with biases and it can be very hard to make people recognize their bias and acknowledge it as such rather than universal truth.

Hillis, Marchbanks, Tylor and Peterson (1999). Poststerilization Regret: Findings from the United States Collaborative Review of Sterilization, Obstetrics & Gynecology 93(6).

Their conclusion is "Although most women expressed no regret after tubal sterilization, women 30 years of age and younger at the time of sterilization had an increased probability of expressing regret during follow-up interviews within 14 years after the procedure." but this is just one way of interpreting the data. The more interesting conclusion is: "For women aged 30 or younger at sterilization, the cumulative probability of regret decreased as time since the birth of the youngest child increased (2–3 years, 16.2%, 95% CI 11.4, 21.0; 4 –7 years, 11.3%, 95% CI 7.8, 14.8; 8 or more years, 8.3%, 95% CI 5.1, 11.4) and was lowest among women who had no previous births (6.3%, 95% CI 3.1, 9.4)." (my emphasis)

How many optional medical procedures have a regret rate of 6.3%? Certainly not IVF. With any luck you will find a doctor who is willing to reconsider if her/his bias is exposed. It can't be pleasant to identify as pro-choice and realize that you don't actually support reproductive freedom but only "now or later" as options for women. Mind you, most people are happy to be hypocrites so all I can do is wish you luck.


Side note, doctors tend to hear from unhappy patients but follow-up with happy patients is rare. Therefore I would encourage any CF person who got sterilized to send a note to the doctor after 1, 5, 10, etc years to express thanks and absolute non-regret. We need to be more vocal about our experiences to help change the conventional wisdom about regret which is keeping others from accessing sterilization.

I know a doc in Massachusetts, if ur close or willing/able to travel PM me. He removed my tubes when I was 27.

In the past others have mentioned going to Planned Parenthood, at least to get a reference for a doctor who would be willing to perform sterilization at your age. It's worth a try.

At first glance there seems to be a vicious double standard against women, but younger men have reported that doctors show the same unwillingness to perform a vasectomy on them as well, and for the same "reasons". That's come up here as well. Some doctors won't perform vasectomies on married men unless the wife discusses it with the doctor and signs a document agreeing to the procedure, which on the face of it is a gross violation of the US HIPAA medical privacy act.

For what it's worth, another member here performed a search of legal databases a few years ago in response to my request. She could find no case of a doctor being sued by a woman who received a tubal ligation and then "changed her mind", so any doctor using that as an excuse not to sterilize a patient is full of it. There were cases about children born after a botched sterilization, though...

If you were a man, you would have been asked one question: "How will you be paying for your vasectomy?"

Yet if the doctor dares to ask the pregnant moo if she wants to keep the kid or abort, all hell breaks loose (even if it's her sixth kid).

When my mom gave birth to my brother, the gynecologist kept coming in the room asking are you sure you want to get your tubes tied? It's irreversible.My mom said that she wasn't leaving the hospital without a tubal. It wasn't like it was a spur of the moment choice for my mom either. When she learned she was pregnant with my brother, she wanted a tubal. My mom was 29 with two kids seven years apart, and the gyno kept asking are you sure about this. He had three kids, so he must have been breeder brained.

My mom said that it's one of her best decisions ever made.

I don't need a tubal because my sexual orientation is my birth control method.

I got my tubal at 22, after a year of begging. Also in Canada. Had to be analyzed by social worker first. Told her suicide would follow any positive pregasty test. I did send a thank you letter to the gyno who made me barren, a couple years ago, listing all I was able to do in my life, thanks to his help and professionalism.

My sympathies. All I can suggest besides going and calling/writing as many docs as you can is to keep repeating to these dense fucks that you're considering it and to write it down in your file.

A light at the end of the tunnel- yesterday I was getting a physical for my drivers permit and I mentioned twice that doctors NEVER write down my mentions of sterilization in my visit- the nurses looked at each other and rolled their eyes, but the doctor that came in was super helpful and gave my a recommendation of two doctors and a facility that would possibly sterilize me. AND she went back and put sterlization in my notes. Yay?

:I It's too bad im knee deep in ednos or whatever right now to help myself right now, doubt a parasite could survive the sword of fire shoved in there and the barren tomb of my insides. Bring it- if only there were a Barren fairy who could sprinkle just sterility onto me as I slept.. Good luck squiggly.

benevolent Anti-natalist, pro-abortion, pro-smut, anti-sleeze, eat the rich, fuck childbirth. pro-black, lgbtqia? Cool. *thumbs up*

"I don't need a tubal because my sexual orientation is my birth control method."

There are men out there who are ok with the rape of gay woman as some jerks think all a gay woman needs is "THEIR dick" to change their sexual orientation. I was just reading an article that I now can't find about a lesbian girl who worried that her male "friend"could rape her to be the one that "put her straight". I wish I could find that article.

It blows my mind that a woman had to be analyzed by a social worker to have a tubal when it is the teen moos who need a complete brain exam.

Correct me if I'm wrong, shy lurker, but I believe you are asexual, not a lesbian. Either way, contemplativeintrovert is completely right about this. Rapists will rape women whenever and wherever they get the opportunity. As far as I know, they usually don't use condoms, although I've heard that some will for a variety of reasons, sometimes to hide evidence that a rape actually occurred. I'm sure you are already aware of this, and I'm preaching to the choir, though.

I am sometimes so disgusted with the way some humans behave, I think that dung beetles are a higher life form than many of the DNA replicants that people are popping out.