Take my uterus, please!
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:
The condescension and the patronizing attitude that not only does he know what's best because he's the doctor, but that a woman can only be fulfilled if she has children, is something I would truly not have expected to hear in 2006, and it makes me very nervous about my ob/gyn appointment next month.
Within the past two years, my periods have gotten worse and worse. They're longer, for one thing--I can usually count on 9 days of bleeding--and they're heavier. The cramps are agonizing; the mood swings make me hell to be around, and I've started having migraines again.
Because of my blood pressure, no doctor will put me on the Pill. Personally, I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to say, "Fuck it--take it all out." I'm sure that if I even suggest that, I'll get asked if I'm sure I don't want children.
I like kids--when they're other people's, and I can pet them and hold them and play with them and give them back. I have absolutely no desire to have any myself. I've got a genetic predisposition to hypertension and diabetes and a family history of strokes. I'm almost 37. My father died before his 50th birthday. I'm on meds for depression. I'm one layoff away from financial disaster. I can barely deal with the fact that my cat's peeing inappropriately--what on earth would I do with a child?
Since
telesilla doesn't want kids either, I really don't see that I need to have my reproductive organs taking up space and making me miserable. If there's something that can be done short of a full hysterectomy, great, but regardless, it's going to be my decision, and I don't need to have a doctor patting me on the head and telling me that I might change my mind. At what point am I, as a woman, considered old enough to make my own decisions? 18? 28? 38? Never?
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 school classes, she saw a fourth child as an impossible burden....My patient’s request wasn’t unreasonable. She was choosing a form of birth control favored by millions of other American women. For her, I just felt it was a bad choice because in 15 years, much could change: her children might go off to college, she might be remarried, she could have a higher income.He apparently tried to talk her out of it, by among other things, asking her "What if your children died in a fire? Would you want more children?"
The condescension and the patronizing attitude that not only does he know what's best because he's the doctor, but that a woman can only be fulfilled if she has children, is something I would truly not have expected to hear in 2006, and it makes me very nervous about my ob/gyn appointment next month.
Within the past two years, my periods have gotten worse and worse. They're longer, for one thing--I can usually count on 9 days of bleeding--and they're heavier. The cramps are agonizing; the mood swings make me hell to be around, and I've started having migraines again.
Because of my blood pressure, no doctor will put me on the Pill. Personally, I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to say, "Fuck it--take it all out." I'm sure that if I even suggest that, I'll get asked if I'm sure I don't want children.
I like kids--when they're other people's, and I can pet them and hold them and play with them and give them back. I have absolutely no desire to have any myself. I've got a genetic predisposition to hypertension and diabetes and a family history of strokes. I'm almost 37. My father died before his 50th birthday. I'm on meds for depression. I'm one layoff away from financial disaster. I can barely deal with the fact that my cat's peeing inappropriately--what on earth would I do with a child?
Since
telesilla doesn't want kids either, I really don't see that I need to have my reproductive organs taking up space and making me miserable. If there's something that can be done short of a full hysterectomy, great, but regardless, it's going to be my decision, and I don't need to have a doctor patting me on the head and telling me that I might change my mind. At what point am I, as a woman, considered old enough to make my own decisions? 18? 28? 38? Never?