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If I Am Old Enough To Choose To Have A Baby, I'm Old Enough To Choose Not To. Even Permanently.
I've said it before and I'll continue to say it until the culture is changed - if girls under the legal age of majority are considered autonomous enough to choose to conceive or keep a pregnancy or raise a child, than women the same age and older are capable of making the choice not to. With adoption, fostering, step-parenting, and the more extreme pregnancy surrogates as options, the consequences for regretting a permanent sterilization are far less disastrous than the consequences of forced motherhood or regretting childbirth.
I have ALWAYS known that I did not want to be pregnant. I assumed, when I was a child, that I would eventually become a parent because, with no role models otherwise, it never occurred to me that not having children was even an option. But all my childhood dolls and daydreams were adopted, as I was. My adopted parents provided me with such a loving home that I was convinced that the more responsible thing to do was to be an adoptive parent too, to give other less fortunate children the kinds of opportunities I had been given.
As I have gotten older, starting at about age 21, the idea of parenting even as an adoptive parent became more and more onerous until, now approaching middle age, I can't think of anything culturally expected that I want to do less. I'd even choose monogamy over parenthood at this point, if my life were on the line for picking one cultural milestone that I had to accept that I have previously eschewed. Every year, I keep expecting some magical "biological clock" to start ticking, but every year I am more grateful than the previous year that I do not have children. The closer I get to the age of no return, the more relieved I am that I will one day not be able to change my mind.
I have been refused sterilization, and those who were willing were out of my price range because I don't have health insurance. Perhaps people ought not to be trying to convince someone who lives below the poverty line without health insurance that she should be having children - it's tragic those who are *actually* concerned with "what about the children" are the ones who don't have them, while those who do are more concerned about imposing their values to the *detriment* of those children they pay lip service to. But I digress. Always, the response to my desire to be childfree is that I might change my mind, as if adoption isn't an option. Some day, I might find that "right man" who will make me want to procreate.
Sorry, but the only thing that delaying sterilization did for me was make it more likely that I'd have an abortion, which I also don't regret. Had I been sterilized when I first requested it, I wouldn't have had the procedure that these same people find even more appalling than the sterilization procedure. This is what happens when you withhold contraception - you increase the chances of having abortions.
That is not a procedure I would have chosen, like other elective procedures such as getting a nose job, but I did choose it because it was better than the alternative, which was remaining pregnant. If one is truly interested in reducing abortions, one ought to be the most supportive of access to contraception, including permanent methods. My brief pregnancy and abortion procedure were some of the worst days of my adult life, but you bet your ass I'd do it again rather than carry a parasite around for 9 months or be stuck raising a dependent for the next two decades. And I'd bet *my* ass that you really don't want someone raising said dependent when that person refers to it as a "parasite".
Every day, every year, I am more and more relieved and thankful that I had an abortion. The only negative emotion I feel about it at all is the accompanying frustration that I shouldn't have NEEDED it in the first place if I had just been allowed to get sterilized at an affordable price when I asked for it.
I have ALWAYS known that I did not want to be pregnant. I assumed, when I was a child, that I would eventually become a parent because, with no role models otherwise, it never occurred to me that not having children was even an option. But all my childhood dolls and daydreams were adopted, as I was. My adopted parents provided me with such a loving home that I was convinced that the more responsible thing to do was to be an adoptive parent too, to give other less fortunate children the kinds of opportunities I had been given.
As I have gotten older, starting at about age 21, the idea of parenting even as an adoptive parent became more and more onerous until, now approaching middle age, I can't think of anything culturally expected that I want to do less. I'd even choose monogamy over parenthood at this point, if my life were on the line for picking one cultural milestone that I had to accept that I have previously eschewed. Every year, I keep expecting some magical "biological clock" to start ticking, but every year I am more grateful than the previous year that I do not have children. The closer I get to the age of no return, the more relieved I am that I will one day not be able to change my mind.
I have been refused sterilization, and those who were willing were out of my price range because I don't have health insurance. Perhaps people ought not to be trying to convince someone who lives below the poverty line without health insurance that she should be having children - it's tragic those who are *actually* concerned with "what about the children" are the ones who don't have them, while those who do are more concerned about imposing their values to the *detriment* of those children they pay lip service to. But I digress. Always, the response to my desire to be childfree is that I might change my mind, as if adoption isn't an option. Some day, I might find that "right man" who will make me want to procreate.
Sorry, but the only thing that delaying sterilization did for me was make it more likely that I'd have an abortion, which I also don't regret. Had I been sterilized when I first requested it, I wouldn't have had the procedure that these same people find even more appalling than the sterilization procedure. This is what happens when you withhold contraception - you increase the chances of having abortions.
That is not a procedure I would have chosen, like other elective procedures such as getting a nose job, but I did choose it because it was better than the alternative, which was remaining pregnant. If one is truly interested in reducing abortions, one ought to be the most supportive of access to contraception, including permanent methods. My brief pregnancy and abortion procedure were some of the worst days of my adult life, but you bet your ass I'd do it again rather than carry a parasite around for 9 months or be stuck raising a dependent for the next two decades. And I'd bet *my* ass that you really don't want someone raising said dependent when that person refers to it as a "parasite".
Every day, every year, I am more and more relieved and thankful that I had an abortion. The only negative emotion I feel about it at all is the accompanying frustration that I shouldn't have NEEDED it in the first place if I had just been allowed to get sterilized at an affordable price when I asked for it.
no subject
I'm so grateful that I was able to find a doctor that didn't even flinch when I wanted to get a tubal-I was 25 and hadn't even been his youngest nullipara (I forget the actual medical term) tubal patient.