No, I’m not having kids.
Content warning for menstruation, sterilization and other similar female* health topics. (Originally posted in German, on my LinkedIn. This is a translated, mildly edited version of that original text.)
Last week was April 22, a pretty significant day for me. I thought long and hard about writing something about it, but in the spirit of visibility and normalization, I think I almost have to. You see, I celebrate April 22 like a second birthday, because it’s the day that the best decision I ever made for myself and for my health came to fruition: the day I was finally able to get sterilized.
I am childfree, meaning that I am choosing to not have children and be a parent (not to be confused with childless, meaning: involuntarily not being able to become a parent). Now, if you’re thinking, “But Natalia, why is this even an issue? That’s your personal decision, it’s nobody’s business!” — Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? (If I were a man, it probably would be nobody’s business!) My reality, unfortunately, is quite different.
You don’t need to have the textbook family to BE a family
I am a cis woman in a long-term heterosexual relationship with a cis man. We married early, and even then, in our early 20s, we were asked over and over again, “When are you having kids?”, “Do you already have children?”, “Is that why you got married so early, because you’re expecting children?” (This last question actually only stopped after we had been married for about a year, and still had no babies. Also, I wanna send a very special shout-out to that one neighbor of my mom’s, who greeted me for a year by staring at my stomach).
Every time I told that we didn’t want kids, they would smile at me. “It’ll happen,” they’d say. Or “Oh, as soon as it happens then, you’ll see — it’s the most beautiful thing in the world”. The fact that I had never had this desire (and fortunately neither does my husband) seems to be completely incomprehensible to some people.
But that’s the way it is with many things that deviate from the cultural norm. And not understanding something is perfectly ok. What’s not ok is to try to force your own opinion and world view onto other people, be it your religion or your life philosophies. It would never even occur to me to tell someone how to live their lives, or that they aren’t living “the right way”. I’ll recommend something to someone if I think they’ll like it. Or professionally, sure, since I know (for the most part :)) what I’m doing. But privately? That’s an absolute no-go. Suggestions are welcome. But non-solicit opinions? Nope.
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people who believe that their worldview is the only correct one. That a cis woman must marry a cis man, and have children, and only then are you a family. And then you buy or build a house, and get a white picket fence, and get a dog, and have two cars in the garage, and ta-daaaa: you’re the perfect sitcom family! ❤️
Unfortunately, even in 2022, feminism has not yet reached the point where a person’s decision to live their life as they see fit, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else, is simply respected. And for “freaks” like me (and my husband) who never wanted to have kids? Never wanted to build or buy a house in the ‘burbs, and never felt the need to live the American-dream-sitcom-lifestyle? For us, we’re left with comments like, “How selfish can you be?”, “You’ll just never experience real love if you don’t have kids”, or the classic, “You’ll regret it when you’re old and there’s no one left to take care of you”. (I still hear that last one all the time. And “Can you still reverse your decision? You would be suuuuch a good mother” is also getting old.). Also, I would like to state here that I have absolutely nothing against children! I love my friends’ children, and the children in my family. I love being an aunt and a godmother. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have no desire to be a mother myself.
I find it extremely outdated that you are only considered a family if you get married and have children. Family is more than what tradition and fairytales say! A family can be a mother, her adult children, their life partners, and two dogs. Best friends can be a family. A couple with twelve cats can be a family. Polyamorous families exist, too. And so many more! No one has the right to determine that someone else is living “wrongly” or that the lifestyle someone else is living is not valid or “not enough” — and nobody can claim that you don’t know what love is until you bring a child into the world!
The thing with the female* body
It’s not news that the state of medicine is deplorable on a global scale when it comes to ailments that women* and people with uteruses experience: the conditions that affect women* and people with uteruses more than men* are among the least researched, and it has been proven that there is a gap in medical understanding when it comes to treating women*. (Not-so-fun-fact: for people of color, this is also another far worse issue!)
For years, I took the pill. That’s what women* do when they have sex with men* and don’t want to get pregnant, I was told. But when I told my gynecologist in my mid-20s that the pill was making my depression worse, but that we still needed a safe contraceptive because pregnancy wasn’t an option, his response was that I should just get a copper IUD inserted — his daughter did, too — without doing any tests to see if this solution was okay for my body. (Spoiler Alert: it wasn’t, my body hated the thing).
In case you missed it: Health is not a one-size-fits-all issue. This is true for the beauty industry, but also for medications, diets, and all other solutions. Just as you can’t tell a person with depression to “just go for a walk” and not need their medication, you shouldn’t push contraceptives on a woman without knowing her body.
And what my long-time (!) gynecologist then ignored is that without the hormones in the pill, I got terrible cysts in my ovaries and had to endure excruciating pain during long periods of my menstrual cycles. If you’re wondering what happens when a cyst gets caught in a copper IUD and “breaks”… DM me and I’ll tell you. (For those who don’t want to know in detail: I was bedridden for weeks and had to take three different types of antibiotics and painkillers three times a day. You can guess the rest.)
Stopping the pill off, taking it again after taking out the IUD (I’m telling you, inserting and removing this thing was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced — and I’ve dislocated my right kneecap twice!), and stopping it again years later also pretty much destroyed my hormone balance, and made me go through quite a lot physically. But I’ll spare you from more horror stories of my contraceptive history…. Just know that I struggled for years with pain, health issues, problems with contraceptives, and my declining mental health — all while constantly having this stress in the back of my mind that something could happen, and on the verge of freaking out if my period was even a day late.
A Facebook group changed my life
Dramatic headline. But it happened. For me it was really absolutely life-changing when I talked to a lady in a Facebook group about these issues, and then another lady introduced me to the Facebook group with a name that translates to “Sterile by Choice”.
Suddenly, I not only found a community that understood me, but also, with the help of this community, a doctor who finally, finally took me seriously. Who didn’t try to convince me that I — age 29, at that time — would change my mind. Who listened to my history, examined me, took me seriously, and understood my concerns, and who then offered me not only to ablate my uterus (in order to reduce all discomfort) and laparoscopically remove cysts and adhesions, but also gave me the option of completely removing my fallopian tubes.
Five weeks later, on Thursday, 22.04.2021, my mom, my youngest sister and my husband drove me to the hospital in Klosterneuburg, 20min from my home in Vienna. And when I woke up barely 4 hours later after the bilateral salpingectomy (= the surgical removal of my fallopian tubes) and thermal ablation, it was like a rebirth, with a huge emotional and mental burden lifted off my shoulders.
My roommate, who had the same procedure done with the same doctor, told me that she had had an unplanned pregnancy five years before that, and spent years after that looking for a doctor who would sterilize her, but had to hear each time that her son would probably love to have a sibling, and was told that her mind would soon change the next time she got pregnant — she, too, was always spoken to condescendingly, as if she (6 years my senior) were not mature enough to make her own decisions. She, too, was patronized. We talked for a long time, got along well, joked with the nurse who checked on us. And the next morning, we were both discharged.
I walked out a bit sore, a bit tired, definitely in withdrawal after more than 36h without coffee, but beaming. And since then I no longer have huge cysts, infections or debilitating pain during ovulation or menstruation. No more fear in the back of my mind when my menstruation (now short, virtually painless — compared to before — and far more pleasant, with less PMS) is delayed, shortened, skipped, or whatever. And all this without stuffing my body full of the hormones that destroyed my mental health for over ten years.
Every day since April 22, 2021, has been better that way than every single day before it.
Visibility and normalization create change
This headline may sound scary to some. But I think we need to talk more. We need to talk about the issues that were previously considered taboo. About the uncomfortable things. About the things that might be unpleasant or that might make others feel uncomfortable. We have to talk about these things so that they are no longer “scary subjects”. So that they are no longer considered negative or unattractive. So that at some point we get to the point where you don’t feel uncomfortable hearing about them or reading about them or talking about them — because all these things are normal. Humans go through so much, with our bodies, with our psyches…. there’s so much we don’t even talk about. But if we just speak up and share our experiences, then we might find support. Then maybe we’ll find others who have had similar experiences, who can give us tips, who can share information with us, or who can just make us feel less alone. And then maybe we’ll help others feel less alone, too.
I have female* friends who struggled with health issues for years before someone came up with the idea that they should be screened for PCOS and endometriosis. I personally know a lot of women* and people with uteruses who are not taken seriously by doctors and whose voices are not heard until it is too late. So yes. Let’s talk about “women* issues” more often, please. Let’s talk about how outdated many medications and medical treatments are, mostly for women* and for people with uteruses. And please let’s also finally talk about how being childfree is a valid choice, and that childfree people are not “missing out” on anything, that we are not “selfish” about it, and that we can and may very well make the decision to be sterilized without being patronized by our doctors or the people around us.
For more information on sterilization (in German), I recommend the Facebook group “Sterile by Choice”.
