Take my uterus, please!

[darkrosetiger]

I'm still sitting here trying to pick my jaw up off the floor after reading this article in the New York Times, by a doctor who was asked to perform a tubal ligation on a patient:
Earlier this year, a patient of mine in her early 20s who was expecting her third child asked to have her tubes tied. A mother of two, with a full-time job and part-time

Comments

Loads of TMI here

[tzi]

I was barely ten when I first got my period. Six months later, I made my first visit to an OBGYN because I had been bleeding for six weeks.

He put me on the pill.

Things went like that off and on for a long time. I brought up a hysterectomy, was told I was "too young". That "the pill would work fine". I said, "What about when I hit thirty-five, and I'm overweight, and you don't want me on the pill?" That was countered with, "But you might WANT CHILDREN ONE DAY."

I hate children. I do not want children. I love my niece, because I can give her back when I'm ready.

So. Twenty years later, I had PCOD, endometriosis, migraines caused by hormones, and still, my most recent OBGYN said, "But what if you DECIDE YOU WANT CHILDREN!?"

.....Okay, yes, I've been seeing you five years now, you haven't caught a clue yet. Right.

Went to my internist. Mentioned the problems, how I was feeling. He knew my family history, knew about the depression and the migraines. He knew I can't take Imitrex. And he said to me, "You know, I think a hysterectomy is a very appropriate choice for you if you're certain you don't want children."

I called my mother, and she found a reliable physician willing to talk with me and take that shit OUT. Radical hysterectomy.

I was thirty.

Twenty years of suffering, and this? Has been the most wonderful thing ever. I cannot recommend it enough, to you or anyone else who suffers as badly as all of the things I recall. Cysts bursting, causing vomiting and fainting and severe pain. Bleeding from the bedroom to the bathroom, and lemme tell you, true love? Is someone who will follow you with a towel and then mop because you can't manage it.

I think our society puts WAY too much stress on having children regardless of how YOU actually feel. While I would say that a lot of unnecessary surgery gets done as far as gynecology goes, I also think that for every one of those, a more necessary surgery goes undone. Personally? By God, woman. FIND you an OBGYN who will take that stuff out. I can honestly say it'll be the greatest thing that ever happened to you.