Even at the best of times my younger children’s birth mother is a most unreliable narrator of the events in her own life. So we must take it with a large crystal of en-a-see-ell when she reports that she was sternly rebuffed by her doctor when she requested that at the end of this pregnancy he tie her tubes. “You never know,” he allegedly said. “You might decide you want to have children of your own when you’re 35.”
At 10pm on a Friday night she let slip this anecdote; 28 weeks pregnant with her fourth child, hooked up to monitors in a hospital bed far from her own town and in pain from pre-term contractions she swore never to go down this road again. “Why don’t you get the implant after you deliver?” I asked, and that’s when she admitted the wish for a permanent fertility solution. A red haze blurred my vision. “Did you argue with him?” She shook her head no. “Honey, it’s the doctor’s job to give you the birth control you want. He doesn’t get to decide if you have any more children!”
“I knew he wasn’t going to do it for me,” she said. “Why would I argue with him?”
“Then you have to find someone else who will do it!” The nurse stopped fussing with the fetal monitor long enough to shoot me a look. I considered enlisting her help but she skittered out of the room before she could be dragged into the discussion.
Then the moment passed. My anger evaporated leaving behind only tepid resignation. This is but the smallest episode in the comedy of errors which so far makes up her reproductive life. Maybe I should be more hopeful. Maybe, along with her doctor, I should set my eye upon a time in the future when this girl gets her act together to such a degree that she can plan a pregnancy, hope for a pregnancy, truly desire the miracle of a pregnancy.
But that time is not now, and it alternately breaks my heart and makes me angry enough to kick holes in the wall that she’s judged for reproducing inappropriately while at the same time she lacks the means to fix the problem once and for all.
**empathizing**
I (and others I’ve known) hit that same brick wall with doctor after doctor after doctor…. Worse still if you don’t have children (and like me, didn’t want to have children).
I became a mom at 33 when my birth control failed. Make no mistake – I LOVE my daughter with all my heart and wouldn’t take for her.
But it doesn’t change that, before she was born, I didn’t want children and 7 years later I can say with all certainty that that wouldn’t have changed. After her birth, my request for permanent birth control was again refused. Even after I almost hemorrhaged to death twice in the following month, they were still reluctant.
Sorry if that was t.m.i., I just wanted to relay how insanely difficult it is to get a permanent birth control fix.
The preventable heartbreaking result – multitudes of unwanted children born into abuse. :(
Until women can universally and completely control their reproductive lives there is no hope for true equality. Unfortunately much of our patriarchal society still thinks of us as some sort of adult-children who are not entirely able to know our own minds.
I’ve known since the age of 16 that I did not want to have or raise children. I am so very, very lucky to have been able to afford reliable birth control, have had the education to use it and, when faced with accidental pregnancy, to have had the financial resources to terminate. It speaks volumes that so many women do not have these basic tools.
Oddly, this is a problem that I too faced. First it was at the hands of military medicine where, if you asked for a tubal before the age of 24 and/or had less than four children they would make you undergo a psych eval before agreeing to it. Seriously. I thought that was stupid considering the number of young couples where one or both members are military members. After my 7th child was born right before I turned 30 my doctor tried to talk me out of it. He was sure that I would want more children. HELLO!?! Isn’t 7 enough? Seriously?!? He knew I was a physically miserable pregnant person. He knew I just had one child diagnosed with autism and was going through various testing with two others because something wasn’t right and he was sure I would want more. I really think doctors are more worried about the few who later regret the tubal and can’t have it successfully reversed than those of us who, for whatever reasons, have decided beyond a shadow of a doubt that we do not want any more children.
This makes me so thankful I have a doctor who listens to me. I got my tubes tied at 29 after having two children by c-section. I knew I was done and my body just didn’t need to do it again, although it could have. While I did get the “here are all of the options available to you, why don’t you go home and talk about it and let me know” speech, he didn’t argue with me when I said “this is really what I want”.
Is it possible for you to go to an appointment with her and talk to her doc for/with her? Would she even go for that?
peace…
I know I never want kids, but I feel like I can’t even ask for a permanent solution because I have heard so many stories about other women my age being refused. I don’t have kids, so I can’t be trusted to know if I might want them. I would much rather regret not having them, then have them and discover I wished I hadn’t. However, what I do have is Mirena, which is at least birth control I don’t have to think about and lasts 5 years, which is a reasonably long solution. Maybe after my second go-round with it, I’ll finally be “old enough” to know what I want.
It’s almost the opposite of this story.
More people making birth control decisions for people when it’s not their place or their choice.
I want you to know that when I read your stories and interactions with your children’s birth mother, I always feel that we’re a lot alike. In the sense that you stick by people, even though they don’t always earn or deserve it. You’re an amazing person. I don’t know you, but it comes through in your writing <3
Thanks Britni. I’m sure you know I think you’re pretty damn amazing yourself.
I was the struggling divorced mother of a toddler when I first told my doc that I was done and wated my tubes tied. I was 23. His reply was that he wouldn’t even discuss it until I was 30.
I was unable to take the pill due to the side effects, and relying on condoms for birth control for 7 years was scary as hell. My annual was 6 months before my birthday, but I went in all excited. “It’s TIME!” He tried to talk me out of it AGAIN, reasoning that I might change my mind. “Look doc, my kid is now 10. I’m NOT starting over. If the man of my dreams wants children with me, then he’s not the man of my dreams.” “What if you got pregnant tomorrow?” “Then I’d be late for the clinic. I’m DONE, I mean it.”
The doc tried one more time in pre-op to talk me out of it. I mentioned that since he was doing it laproscopically, I wanted pictures when I woke up.
Now I’m 41 and haven’t regretted the decision for one minute. It finally dawned on me that I likely could have found a doctor who wasn’t hell-bent on delivering babies (and Catholic), but I wasn’t much on challenging authority at the time.
Doctors really need to stop playing God, especially when a woman is clear on her stance about starting or expanding a family.