On a related topic...

[geologyrox]

Since the stem cell debate has finally crossed the line into abortion debate (something I usually don't end up debating about, because I'm centrist enough to not be much fun to fight with) I thought I'd ask about something related, but hopefully less controversial.

I'm 22, female, and married. Neither I nor my husband want kids for a lot of reasons. First, I have two little brothers who I'm very protective and supportive of, and I've got 10 or 12 years before they are both done with college. A first sibling when you are 10 years old is amazing birth control =) Secondly, I'm selfish - I want to travel, I want to do field work, I want to have a career that I just love waking up to. I think kids deserve/require an immediate family member staying at home full time at least until school begins, and they deserve a mother who isn't in the field for weeks at a time. I wouldn't be able to live my dreams if I had kids. Thirdly, I'm an environmentalist - not just in the way that means I put out my recycling every day, but where I sit down sometimes and look at my life and try to find ways to make that life have a less negative impact on the world. I can't come up with any good reason for adding one more person to the population charts. In that vein, I figure that even if in ten or fifteen years the other reasons I have for not having children become moot, because I was done with field research and found a great job teaching online and we had oodles of money with which to take the kids with us to travel, we'd just adopt. My father and aunt were adopted, and I consider his family to be my family - the word 'real' never comes up.


So here's the problem: If I got knocked up tomorrow, I'd have and raise the baby. It's not like I couldn't support it, or that the child would be born into a crappy situation - I'd likely quit work, finish up those classes for the teaching certificate, and be a pretty darn good mom. I don't want that, though - so I take my birth control religiously, hold my breath over a pregnancy test every month or two, and every so often I ask my doctor if I can get a tubal done yet.

Every doctor I have ever asked (all in Florida, it could be regional) has refused to tie my tubes. I'm too young, I've never had children, I'll change my mind and sue them... I am not allowed to make that choice today. I've been told to have my husband contact them for vasectomy information, but they are adamant that they can't help me. They tell me to come back in 20 years, or to wait until after I've had a few kids, and in the meantime to keep up with my birth control. 20 years of .1% (perfect use) chance of pregnancy should not be my only option!

Is this just a symptom of too many lawsuits? Isn't there ANYTHING I can work out legally that would be binding enough to remove their worries? With as many unwanted pregnancies as there are, and as many unadopted children, why am I being fought on this? Shouldn't we all be celebrating when someone decides they'd rather not have biological children? I know we've got a bunch of doctors, care to weigh in? Lawyers?

[Mystery Squid]

To put it bluntly and succinctly

You're a kid. At 22 you think you know who you are and what you want, but the fact is you don't, and you WILL change.


Edit: if you REALLY want to get this done, think outside the US.....

[dbermanmd]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ Jul 25 2006, 11:45 AM) [snapback]291978[/snapback]</div>

Since the stem cell debate has finally crossed the line into abortion debate (something I usually don't end up debating about, because I'm centrist enough to not be much fun to fight with) I thought I'd ask about something related, but hopefully less controversial.

I'm 22, female, and married. Neither I nor my husband want kids for a lot of reasons. First, I have two little brothers who I'm very protective and supportive of, and I've got 10 or 12 years before they are both done with college. A first sibling when you are 10 years old is amazing birth control =) Secondly, I'm selfish - I want to travel, I want to do field work, I want to have a career that I just love waking up to. I think kids deserve/require an immediate family member staying at home full time at least until school begins, and they deserve a mother who isn't in the field for weeks at a time. I wouldn't be able to live my dreams if I had kids. Thirdly, I'm an environmentalist - not just in the way that means I put out my recycling every day, but where I sit down sometimes and look at my life and try to find ways to make that life have a less negative impact on the world. I can't come up with any good reason for adding one more person to the population charts. In that vein, I figure that even if in ten or fifteen years the other reasons I have for not having children become moot, because I was done with field research and found a great job teaching online and we had oodles of money with which to take the kids with us to travel, we'd just adopt. My father and aunt were adopted, and I consider his family to be my family - the word 'real' never comes up.
So here's the problem: If I got knocked up tomorrow, I'd have and raise the baby. It's not like I couldn't support it, or that the child would be born into a crappy situation - I'd likely quit work, finish up those classes for the teaching certificate, and be a pretty darn good mom. I don't want that, though - so I take my birth control religiously, hold my breath over a pregnancy test every month or two, and every so often I ask my doctor if I can get a tubal done yet.

Every doctor I have ever asked (all in Florida, it could be regional) has refused to tie my tubes. I'm too young, I've never had children, I'll change my mind and sue them... I am not allowed to make that choice today. I've been told to have my husband contact them for vasectomy information, but they are adamant that they can't help me. They tell me to come back in 20 years, or to wait until after I've had a few kids, and in the meantime to keep up with my birth control. 20 years of .1% (perfect use) chance of pregnancy should not be my only option!

Is this just a symptom of too many lawsuits? Isn't there ANYTHING I can work out legally that would be binding enough to remove their worries? With as many unwanted pregnancies as there are, and as many unadopted children, why am I being fought on this? Shouldn't we all be celebrating when someone decides they'd rather not have biological children? I know we've got a bunch of doctors, care to weigh in? Lawyers?
[/b]

I am not a Urologist or Ob/Gyn - but as a physician I can tell you that it will be like hitting lotto finding a physician to perform a sterilzation procedure on you at this age. There are multiple reasons - you have enumerated them. You might find that in a decade or so you may opt to have children - you may even change your views on the environment, population control, etc.

I respect your decision not to have children at this point but agree with all the other physicians you have spoken with about performing any type of sterilization procedure at this time on you. I would definately not do it at this time if I were they.

As a sidebar: the world could always use another person(s) like you - educated, dedicated, caring, loving. Lord knows that there are people who are none of the above who continue to populate the world with carbon copies of themselves :-(

[maggieddd]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ Jul 25 2006, 11:45 AM) [snapback]291978[/snapback]</div>

Since the stem cell debate has finally crossed the line into abortion debate (something I usually don't end up debating about, because I'm centrist enough to not be much fun to fight with) I thought I'd ask about something related, but hopefully less controversial.

I'm 22, female, and married. Neither I nor my husband want kids for a lot of reasons. First, I have two little brothers who I'm very protective and supportive of, and I've got 10 or 12 years before they are both done with college. A first sibling when you are 10 years old is amazing birth control =) Secondly, I'm selfish - I want to travel, I want to do field work, I want to have a career that I just love waking up to. I think kids deserve/require an immediate family member staying at home full time at least until school begins, and they deserve a mother who isn't in the field for weeks at a time. I wouldn't be able to live my dreams if I had kids. Thirdly, I'm an environmentalist - not just in the way that means I put out my recycling every day, but where I sit down sometimes and look at my life and try to find ways to make that life have a less negative impact on the world. I can't come up with any good reason for adding one more person to the population charts. In that vein, I figure that even if in ten or fifteen years the other reasons I have for not having children become moot, because I was done with field research and found a great job teaching online and we had oodles of money with which to take the kids with us to travel, we'd just adopt. My father and aunt were adopted, and I consider his family to be my family - the word 'real' never comes up.
So here's the problem: If I got knocked up tomorrow, I'd have and raise the baby. It's not like I couldn't support it, or that the child would be born into a crappy situation - I'd likely quit work, finish up those classes for the teaching certificate, and be a pretty darn good mom. I don't want that, though - so I take my birth control religiously, hold my breath over a pregnancy test every month or two, and every so often I ask my doctor if I can get a tubal done yet.

Every doctor I have ever asked (all in Florida, it could be regional) has refused to tie my tubes. I'm too young, I've never had children, I'll change my mind and sue them... I am not allowed to make that choice today. I've been told to have my husband contact them for vasectomy information, but they are adamant that they can't help me. They tell me to come back in 20 years, or to wait until after I've had a few kids, and in the meantime to keep up with my birth control. 20 years of .1% (perfect use) chance of pregnancy should not be my only option!

Is this just a symptom of too many lawsuits? Isn't there ANYTHING I can work out legally that would be binding enough to remove their worries? With as many unwanted pregnancies as there are, and as many unadopted children, why am I being fought on this? Shouldn't we all be celebrating when someone decides they'd rather not have biological children? I know we've got a bunch of doctors, care to weigh in? Lawyers?
[/b]

I fail to see how that makes you selfish.

[galaxee]

the thing is, many 22 year olds do things on a whim and later change their minds. few demonstrate the maturity that you do. that said, maybe someday you will change your mind. only time will tell.

[SSimon]

I'm confused why a vasectomy cannot be performed on your husband. I thought that this surgery was reversible and typically without consequence.

[geologyrox]

I think that part of the problem is the fundamental belief that adoption isn't an equally valid alternative to bearing your own children. It might well be because my father is adopted that I consider them equivalent. To someone who thinks of adoption as just another way to have children (a way that does not require my passing a bowling ball out a convoluted birth canal) the reasoning presented sounds sort of hollow.

I also think the world would probably be in better shape if people would make a move to get past the evolutionary reflex to make lots of their own babies. I realize that even the environmental reasons might be something I don't give a darn about in ten years, but there aren't going to be any less children who need good homes.

As for responses...

Squid: We joke about taking a trip down to Costa Rica - he could learn to Scuba dive, I could have the surgery and recover in a nice hotel... We aren't really serious. I don't think I'd actually have the surgery right now if I could. It is a big decision, and even people that know me in real life want me to wait - I figure when the entire medical community, my family, AND my internet chatmates think it'd be a bad call, I should probably wait. Doesn't mean it doesn't piss me right off that I couldn't if I wanted to.

Dbermanmd: Obviously, the medical community agrees with you overwhelmingly - probably through varying combinations of 'Do no harm' and 'Do not get sued.' For me, though, getting my tubes tied doesn't equate to being unable to have children - just my ability to bear biological children. I do understand the view that I might change my mind - I just don't think that's a good enough reason to deny me the right to make that decision

maggie: looking at the definition of selfish ("Thinking and acting as if one's own desires and interests are more important than the interests and desires of others") I should have used a different word. I don't think there's a single word that would fit, but what I was trying to convey is that there are things I aim towards solely because they are important to me, that I don't WANT to have to give them up just because the percentages got me in the end.

Galaxee: I agree - 22 year olds (and younger, and older) do stupid things ALL THE TIME - like getting themselves pregnant so their boyfriend will marry them, or getting pregnant because they thought they'd heard it was OK to have sex certain weeks of the month, or get pregnant because their marriage is going down the tubes and they think it will help, or... You get the idea. Why do they get to make that decision, with all it's consequences, and I can't make this one?

SSimon: We've talked about it a few times - I admit we were working on the assumption (possibly incorrect) that reversal isn't even close to a sure thing. I'll ask at next years appointment, because that's the big thing standing in our way. I don't really support him having permanent inability to father children - we're young, and we might not last, or something could happen to me and his next wife might be opposed to adoption... These aren't things I think will happen, but I think that since it's me that this is especially important to, I should be the one to deal with the permanent consequences. If it's not reversible with darn good odds, I can't let him do that on my behalf.

I guess what I'm really sort of irked about is that there is nothing we can or would do to prevent stupid people from making stupid decisions that result in unwanted or otherwise unplanned pregnancies, but I can't make a similarly important decision even if I go out of my way to prove that I'm not taking this lightly. Perhaps it would be the wrong decision - shouldn't it be my wrong decision to make?

[seeh2o]

I work in the gyn field and can verify what you are saying. One of the nurses at our clinic, who was in her mid twenties and had already had two children, and had a very hard time finding a doctor to tie her tubes. (FYI, we do not perform the procedure at our clinic) I don't know how, but she finally found someone to do it. She still has no regrets.

I completely sympathize with you, when I was your age I knew that I did not want to have children, there are just too many out there who already need someone, so adoption made the most sense to me, too. If I were you I would consider the IUD, though they got a very bad reputation in the early 70's, that particular IUD (the Dalkon Shield) has been off the market for decades. There are two on the market, Mirena and ParaGard. ParaGard contains no hormones and is good for up to 10 years, it is the IUD that most young women prefer at our clinic. For more information, here is a link to their website: ParaGard. Here is the link to the other IUD which contains a small amount of levonorgestrel (a common type of progesterone found in birth control pills): Mirena.

Best of luck to you!

[SomervillePrius]

I think I saw on the news a newly approved once a year pill. Basically it gets inserted under your skin and operates for one year. It can be removed at any time (after which you can get pregnant). This would make remembering the pill easy for you and stilll leave more options open. I'm 35 and I don't share all of the views I had when I was 22. For me getting a kid is not as far fetched as it onced seemed. I think I would like to at least have the opetions open even if my fiance and I are seriously considering adoption.

[wstander]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ Jul 25 2006, 11:24 AM) [snapback]292082[/snapback]</div>

I guess what I'm really sort of irked about is that there is nothing we can or would do to prevent stupid people from making stupid decisions that result in unwanted or otherwise unplanned pregnancies, but I can't make a similarly important decision even if I go out of my way to prove that I'm not taking this lightly. Perhaps it would be the wrong decision - shouldn't it be my wrong decision to make?
[/b]

You could make that decision and have it done, but as several others noted, you have to go elsewhere. What you want is the rules/attitudes to change so that you can have your way. Period. I know it sounds cruel, but that is my perception.