A few months ago, Capsule reader Jennifer underwent a fairly serious operation – she opted for female sterilisation surgery. She spoke to us about exactly why (a combination of bad experiences on other forms of contraception, but, most crucially, the current political climate which has made her highly concerned that should she become pregnant in the future, she may have to see the pregnancy through)…
For as long as Jennifer* can remember, when she’s thought about her future, it’s not one that involves having children of her own.
“It’s just something I’ve always known,” she says. “Some women talk about how they’ve always known that they’re supposed to be a mum and I’ve always known that I, well, wasn’t!”
She says there was a time when she wavered, but she quickly came to the realization that wanting children was the dream of the person she was with, rather than her own.
“What I actually wanted was to keep a man around who wanted kids,” Jennifer says. “Every day I am eternally grateful that this didn’t work out because motherhood is my absolute nightmare – from being pregnant, giving birth, performing unpaid and unappreciated labour for 18+ years with a (statistically likely) unhelpful partner… even just going from ‘person’ to ‘mother’ in society’s eyes… eek!!!”
So, a few months ago Jennifer underwent a bilateral salpingectomy, removing her fallopian tubes to prevent her from ever getting pregnant. The chance of conceiving after the operation lies somewhere between 0 and 0.3%. The odds of successfully reversing the surgery are extremely low, but there are cases of women – or those assigned female at birth – who have undergone IVF to have children after having the surgery.
Jennifer’s reasons for taking this quite drastic step in preventing a future pregnancy are many and varied.
For a start, there’s the awful experiences she’s had with more conventional forms of birth control.
“I started with the birth control pill when I was 14, since my periods would last for three weeks at a time,” she says. But, Jennifer soon discovered – particularly when she tried going off the pill – that it had been quite severely impacting her mental health.
She then later moved to an IUD, opting for the copper one, rather than Mirena as she wanted to avoid anything with hormones after her experience with the pill.
“My periods on the copper IUD were absolutely hellish,” she says. “Blackout pain, bleeding through super tampons quickly, seven- to nine-day cycles.”
A big reason though, was her experiences with dating. Because, despite making it very clear, upfront (it was literally the first thing on her dating profile) she didn’t want kids, Jennifer was finding that men seemed to take this with a grain of salt.
“I was 26 at the time, looking for guys who were 26-31,” she says. Even though I was very upfront about not wanting kids, I would have guys who would pretend they were fine with not having children, but would eventually start ‘hinting’ at getting me pregnant or confess to hoping that I would ‘change my mind’ for them.”
Jennifer started to worry about what might happen if a partner might try to coerce her into getting pregnant – or even tamper with contraception – and started thinking about what she could do further to protect herself from getting pregnant.
“After researching it further I found that it’s horrifically common for women to essentially be forced into having children they don’t necessarily want – whether the man pressures her until she caves, tampers with her birth control, or physically and sexually abuses her. I wanted to make sure this would never happen to me, and now I’m very happy to be able to say that it never will.”
Political Motivations…
While her troubles with conventional methods of birth control, and her fear that a partner may coerce her into having children – there’s an even bigger reason that motivated her decision to be sterilised: the current political climate and, our current government.
Watching what has been happening in the States in terms of women having autonomy over their own bodies, has been terrifying for Jennifer – and, she’s concerned by what is slowly boiling here in NZ.
Her fear was ignited about eight years ago, as she watched in horror as early aspects of one of her favourite TV shows, The Handmaid’s Tale, appeared to be playing out.
“When Trump was first elected in 2017, I started to panic and think about how I could protect my own bodily autonomy,” she says.” As the saying goes, ‘when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold’”
Then, when Christopher Luxon was announced as the new leader for National, Jennifer grew even more concerned.
“Luxon is publicly pro-life, or as I think it’s more accurate to say, pro-forced birth,” she says. “Shortly after this, the news that Roe v Wade was overturned came out. This is when I started seriously looking into my options in NZ because if the Supreme Court felt empowered enough to overturn an law that is essential to women’s health and autonomy in a country with incredibly swift and intense backlash, why couldn’t this happen in NZ?”
Jennifer says that her fears have only increased this year, which made her certain of her decision to undergo the procedure.
“Simeon Brown – the same Simeon Brown who started University of Auckland’s first anti-abortion club and zero medical or health qualifications – was announced as our new Health Minister shortly after my second consultation,” she says. “NACT rushed through a bill that would reverse pay equity for women without following the legal process. Even though they say that they won’t criminalize abortion, can you really trust the words of anyone who doesn’t believe that women should have autonomy over their own bodies and that the public doesn’t deserve to be consulted on bills that affect us???”
Getting The Surgery…..
It was a few years ago now that Jennifer first set the ball rolling on getting the surgery. It was difficult to know how to even go about it at first – she could find very little information online about it, particularly getting it done in NZ.
She found a comprehensive list on a Reddit community ‘r/childfree’ (“To be honest though, I don’t subscribe to this subreddit,” says Jennifer, ”because I don’t like how they’re so unnecessarily vitriolic towards children but the information is SUPER helpful – you can find more here“. Jennifer has previously donated eggs to Fertility Associates on two occasions and has been happy to help others achieve their goal of becoming parents.)
There’s also a lot of misinformation out there about female sterilisation – for a start, it won’t send you into menopause, unless your ovaries are taken out in the process (which is certainly not standard practice).
Also, from what she could see online, it looked like the surgery would be expensive and as a fresh graduate at the bottom of the pay scale in her profession, she worried it was out of her reach. However, Jennifer discovered that it was possible to get the surgery through the public system.
She paid a visit to her GP, and then decided to try a new GP. “My usual GP is a man in his 50s and I adore him to bits, but I wanted the best possible chance of getting sterilised, so I chose a GP who is a young woman,” she says. “As soon as I told her what I wanted, she immediately said that she would refer me to the public system. There were some questions she had to ask me – e.g. ‘how long have you known you don’t want kids?’, ‘are you currently suffering from any mental health issues?’ etc, and that was that!”
Her referral was accepted within a couple of days, and it was then a seven month wait for a consultation (given that Jennifer’s sterilisation was voluntary, other women were prioritised who needed the surgery for complications like cancer or endometriosis).
At that appointment, she was tested more rigorously about her decision.
“She asked me why I don’t want kids; how long I’ve known, what if I meet Mr. Right?’ says Jennifer. “She also tried to dissuade me from getting surgery – which could be upsetting, but as a medical professional giving a consultation for a virtually irreversible procedure, I understood she is obligated to make sure this is something you absolutely won’t regret.”
Originally, her consultation was for a tubal ligation (this is where a clamp is placed on the fallopian tubes to prevent an egg from reaching the uterus). But, her gynaecologist informed her that a tubal ligation has the same failure rate as a copper IUD – although it also comes with more risks.
“I was distraught and asked her, ‘so there’s no way I can fully have autonomy over my body?’” says Jennfer. “She was incredibly understanding though, calmed me down and told me she was happy to see me again for a second consultation in a few months.”
That’s when Jennifer found out about the option of a bilateral salpingectomy, which has just a few documented cases of failure, but also lower risks than a tubal ligation. As another positive, it lowers your risk of ovarian cancer. It’s generally performed less though, as while there’s a small chance a tubal ligation can be reversed, a bilateral salpingectomy cannot be.
A few months later, her gynaecologist accepted her case – as well as their clinical director, who put her onto the surgical waitlist.
It’s almost two months now since she underwent the operation, which was done laparoscopically and required a few weeks of recovery.
“On the day of the surgery, I was really excited – so excited that I woke up at like 3am to start getting ready…well before my 5am alarm!” says Jennifer. “When my gynaecologist came in to talk with me and fill out the consent forms one last time, I was actually trying really hard not to cry when I was thanking her!”
At home, she’d prepared a ‘care basket’ for herself that she kept nearby, stocked with painkillers, snacks, a hot water bottle and throat lozenges. She also ordered herself a mini cake from Bluebell Cakery that she asked to be decorated with the words ‘sterile and feral’ on it. Which, she ended up eating while watching the newest – and final – season of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Jennifer says the reaction from her friends and family has been very supportive. “No one tried to change my mind (apart from my gynaecologist because she was obligated to do so,” she says. “I was REALLY surprised by how supportive my friends were when I posted about having my operation, and I received tons of lovely messages! My grandmother wasn’t very happy, but she already knew that I don’t want children. My little sister was super supportive, which I was surprised by since she herself is a new mother!”
Jennifer hopes that in sharing her story, other women who may be investigating it will be able to hear from a Kiwi woman who has successfully been through the process and procedure, and is extremely happy with the results.
Jennifer’s Advice For Anyone Considering the Surgery:
Having been through the other side of the process and surgery – with not a lot of information around about other Kiwis who have done it, Jennifer has some advice for any women/assigned females at birth who wish to be childfree and have been looking into other options to stay childfree.
If that’s you, Jennifer has five pieces of advice!
- Think very long and hard about whether you want to get sterilized. If there’s even a possibility you might want children in the future, don’t go through with it because even though there’s a small chance that a tubal ligation can be reversed, it’s a very slim chance
- Do enough research to be able to advocate for yourself if needed
- If you can, take TWO weeks off rather than just one. Even WFH was very difficult in my second week after surgery, and I would have taken two weeks off if I had enough leave
- If you do make it to the surgical waitlist, you should absolutely celebrate! This is a long and difficult process. We will never have baby showers, we don’t get a special day like Mother’s Day, there are just no opportunities for single women to be celebrated so DON’T LET ANYONE MAKE YOU FEEL WEIRD FOR CELEBRATING TAKING BACK YOUR OWN AUTONOMY!!
- This is quite random, but buy loads of throat lozenges! They don’t tell you this until your pre-op anaesthetic consult on the day – I happened to find out by chance through my own research on the reddit page r/sterilization – but you will be intubated during your surgery. My throat was incredibly raw for almost a week after so definitely stock up on throat lozenges!!!
