villainess

I'm big on not taking risks. The Ithaca Health Fund covers sterilisation (you can join from anywhere in the world); as soon as I have some money I'm looking into that Essure thing. Sure, I could keep my "options open" but that means continuing to use birth control, which is a chronic expense and could fail. If it failed I'd have to get an abortion, which is just as invasive and expensive as the Essure would have been in the first place and would cause me to get more-or-less disowned by the greater part of my family, most likely. That's a greater risk than me hypothetically changing my mind and having to adopt, as far as I can see. And I'm even one of the lucky ones who isn't made depressed or ill by horomonal (read: reliable) birth control.

Interestingly enough, the guy who runs the Health Fund set it up to cover permanent but not temporary birth control. He's big into zero population growth (and walks the walk himself, to be fair.)

As for the doctors, I can see the cover-your-ass motivation for trying to talk people out of life-altering elective surgeries, but they have no business point-blank refusing you unless they have a reason to think you have psychological issues. Try a woman-centered health care clinic, says the idealist in me.

Ithaca Health Fund (full disclosure: the fund provides discounts for, and therefore arguably promotes, some fairly bullshit kinds of "alternative" medicine, since they let any "healer" who wants to offer a discount in conjunction with the fund do so.)

the.villainess

Felicia

I personally feel like you are the best person to know if you want or need children....I trust your decisions....about you!!!! What do people think....you have the plumbing...so use it?? NO!!! it's yours...do with it what you want.

I have a story for yall....tubes were to be tied in '95 (paid for by insurance & all papers signed), but, the doctor FORGOT!!! forgot....then 5 years later we got pregnant with my son (1st boy)...what a shocker!!!!Being the people we are and not expecting it to be a boy...we went ahead with the "free" pregnancy. He was healthy and "free" @ the time...he however @ the age of 2 is not now I love him though and I'm glad I made the decision I did.

I don't feel like everyone in this world should be parents...especially those who adamently don't want to be.

Jewel

Chicken Girl

how many licks does it take to get to the baby center of a biological clock?

1... 2... 3... *CRUNCH*

...the world may never know.

Jackalope

For the record, I'm 35 and still haven't felt that biological clock ticking.

My husband and I have been negotiating over this again. He'd really like to have children. And would probably be a great daddy, given how he coos and drools over the kittens that people abandon around our neighborhood. However, I don't personally like children much, and that's before I take into account the really lousy genetics on my side of the family. I have lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, my grandmother had chronic gall bladder problems, my great-grandmother had diabetes. On my mother's side of the family, they all seem to have weird lupus-like symptoms and other connective tissue problems, and about half my cousins have migraines as well. Oh yeah, that's a great set of things to pass on. Oh yeah, I have migraines, and asthma and allergies from HELL, too. All very good reasons to not breed and pass on my genes.

And then there's the practical side. I've had two confirmed miscarriages, and probably a couple more that were too early for me to notice a missed period. In all cases, the hormonal upset made my autoimmune problems worse. Some women see an improvement with pregnancy. Not me. I get much, much sicker. Birth control pills are right out, as well. So even if I manage to get pregnant, the chances of my carrying to term are small. And that ignores what the pregnancy would do to me, as well.

The problem has been that up until the last couple years, I didn't look that ill. Now that I'm scooting around in a wheelchair, I've suddenly stopped hearing questions about when I was going to have kids. But until I became visibly disabled, people just didn't understand that even if I did want children, I couldn't have any.

So it's been just as well that I never really wanted children. While I hated having the choice taken away from me, I also haven't been tortured by the thought of never having children. Among other things, I can always adopt. My husband still wants his genes passed on, so surrogate mother looks better than adoption to him. We're still talking about that part.

I set some conditions that have to be met before we can even seriously consider children:

My health must improve enough that I could be a parent. Right now, sleep deprivation would kill me.

We must own our own house, rather than renting.

That's because the house must be modified to be totally handicapped accessable. Even if I improve, I will likely need to use the wheelchair from time to time. My husband's knees are starting to poop out, so he sees the wisdom in making the house accessable.

We must have some sort of live-in help, as he will probably be working way too many hours (goes with his job) and I am not physically capable of parenting without assistance. Our families live fairly nearby, but not near enough that I could just call up and say, "I need help today." Plus, both sets of parents are getting ready to move farther away in opposite directions.

If those conditions could be met, I'd be willing to consider parenting. If I don't actually have to go through the hell of pregnancy, there's at least a chance I might become a parent. But I know I get really tired of being told, "It's different when they're you're own," or "You'll change your mind," or the especially vomitous "Pregnancy is such an incredible experience!" Sorry, I still remember running out of an 8am class to vomit in a garbage can when I had morning sickness. No thanks.

And yes, I found the postings about "I didn't want children, but once I had one/many I found it was wonderful" moderately annoying as well. I admit to being a curmudgeon and not wanting to hear anything about someone else's kids. It's great that you found the experience fulfilling, but I still find myself wondering out loud, "Why don't you talk about this somewhere else?"

The Other Michael

Hi Jackalope,

Kittens are great fun and very entertaining, nothing at all like children. It would probably be the normative condition for people to enjoy kittens (even if they aren't in a pie), whereas I suspect many kitten fans would just as soon not bother with children.

cheers,
Michael

Immaculate Deception

Jackalope,

You may want to read the book The Sexual Politics of Disability by authors Shakespeare, Gillespie-Sells, and Davies. A physically disabled friend of mine was adamant that I read it. It's possible that most of those people who no longer ask about children think that you don't have sexual desires nor needs, let alone that you're capable of having or taking care of children. Whether or not you want children, people need to shed their preconceived notions and you could help them in doing this.

ID

girlwriter

Several people on this thread have objected to sterilization, suggesting that it is better to keep one's options open. I would like to interject that sterilization *is* keeping options open, because once you do it, you have the option to plan your life and persue your goals with the full knowledge that they will not be thwarted by an unexpected pregnancy (for all practical purposes,) and live free of contraception. There seems to be a misconception that taking birth control pills until menopause is no big deal. Newsflash: It's not good for you. For some of us hormonal birth control is a nightmare, and nothing else is effective enough to be relied upon for a lifetime.

Sterilization is the most responsible thing a person who does not want children can do, because it eliminates the possibility that an accident will happen and the "falling in love with your child" hormones won't be enough to make that individual a good parent. For the quarter of the female population in this country who believe that life without children holds greater possibilities than life with, sterilization is not even remotely closing a door.

Of course we all change througout adulthood. That does not mean we should sit around waiting to act on what we believe is best for us. In the case of the twenty year old who is thinking about it, I think she will find it next to impossible to get the deed done anytime soon, and not without hearing all of the arguments for waiting until she is sick with them. If by that time she still wishes to do it, then it is most likely the best choice. If it's a mistake, she's only lost one option. All is not lost, she can still adopt. See? The door is still open.

Jackalope

I'm familiar with that line of rhetoric. And yes, it's true in many cases. However, anyone who interacts with me for more than a few minutes is left with very little doubt that I still have a sex life. Some of my friends and I have a running joke that we need to have a Gimp Pride movement.

No, I think the problem is that I sort of dropped off the face of the earth for almost a year and now that I've re-entered society, it's in a wheelchair. People are still trying to readjust to that idea, since I was obviously very ill. If I was in a wheelchair because of an accident or injury, I think the reactions would be different. Since I have a degenerative condition, there are times that I simply cannot hide that I am ill. Plus, I'm on a gazillion drugs and make no attempt to hide it. Those things are more likely to make people less nosy about my life. They really don't want to go there.