I wrote this as a) a description of the experience to folks who might be thinking about it and b) as a meditation on life and children. I look forward to your forthcoming piece about to the exciting times you and your partner have examining vaginal mucous. 

My body, I do what I want with it. I don’t want kids, therefore, it IS a disease (and that’s what the hospital admission form said: Reason for Admission: Persistent Fertility)

Are you sure that’s how it works? Honest question.

The way I understand it, it goes like this: If a Catholic church runs a shelter and is so small that it only hires its own Catholic church members as staff, then it can claim exemption. But if it runs a large hospital and hires people regardless of whether they’re a Catholic church member, then they can’t claim exemption.

Also, the way I understand the proposed Blunt Amendment– It would allow employers to deny coverage to anything they found objectionable, religious reasons or not. Your boss doesn’t like blood transfusions? Your insurance won’t pay for one. Your boss thinks C-sections are morally objectionable? Your insurance won’t pay for one.

Scary stuff, imo.

That, and money for an abortion if the 5% failure rate (at best!) for *perfect* use rears its ugly fetus head.

And what about women who have irregular cycles?

And what about women who have better things to do than make detailed notes about their vaginal discharges and underwear aromas?

And what about women who like to fuck two or three times a day, every day of the month?

It’s fine to not want a vasectomy, of course, but I detect some holier-than-thou and smarter-than-thou attitudes in your comment.

I’m happy to stick with the pill because it treats my acne along with preventing pregnancy. If it fails, I’ve already got savings to cover a ‘scrape-and-suck special’ at the local Planned Parenthood.

But please stop pretending there’s no possible reason to be against that mandate other than hating women. One very good reason to be against the mandate is that it is an infringement upon the free exercise of religion.

I’ll make you a deal. You stop pretending that the Catholic Church isn’t one of the most woman-hating institutions every devised by man and we can have a serious discussion about this. If the First Amendment is now used as a bulwark of institutionalized oppression, then it’s time to burn the Constitution and start fresh. Maybe a document written by a bunch of slave-owning, wealthy, white men doesn’t have all the answers.

Whether or not “the birth control issue” has a “misogynist nature”, the first amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion.  It is hardly unreasonable to conclude that that means the government is not permitted to force a religious employer to pay for an insurance plan that covers procedures and substances it considers immoral.  In fact, the Obama administration agrees, since it exempted churches, but tried to claim that only churches or agencies which served their own members but not the general public could claim the exemption. (Run a shelter for battered women that serves only Catholic women, you can claim the exemption. Run a shelter for battered women that takes all comers, no dice.)

I do not share the Catholic belief that birth control is wrong, so I don’t have a dog in that particular fight.  But please stop pretending there’s no possible reason to be against that mandate other than hating women.  One very good reason to be against the mandate is that it is an infringement upon the free exercise of religion.

Sterilization is like getting your esophagus removed to avoid weight gain. Yeah, it works, but holy mackerel, there are better options.

It sounds better than having a piece of plastic wrap snugly applied to your face every time you decide to eat.

I just had the procedure done a few days back-  At one point early in the procedure, something got tugged.  I could tell the anesthetic was working, because it should have been a lot more pain than I felt, given what was going on.

I described it to the doctor as a “It felt as if there was a taut cord between the tip of my toes and the back of my eyeballs, and you just gave it a strum.”

The most disconcerting part for me during my procedure was feeling the pressure  below my waist, while seeing the doctor start working with the cauterizing gun, which looked like a little fine-tipped weller soldering iron.  I didn’t feel a thing, which made me frightened, thinking about what could have been going wrong.

–
Currentlty-  I’m in a state of very low-grade discomfort when I walk, but nothing that’d dissuade me from doing the process again.

The difference is there’s no push to force religious employers to pay for insurance plans which pay for vasectomies, in violation of the dictates of those religions.

There’s no push because most insurance covers it and religious employers aren’t fighting it. Which just proves the misogynist nature of the birth control issue.

I’m assuming that second one is prix fixe, since they pop ‘em out to find ‘em all. (I told you you didn’t want to know what they did for the second)

I’ve long been in the “don’t think I’ll ever want kids” camp… but I was hesitating in case life took a left turn and I wound up deeply involved with someone who felt otherwise and specifically wanted my genes.  And since I’ve never been particularly promiscuous, I didn’t consider the “sales advantage” aspect significant.

Given that I now consider myself middle-aged, odds are that this will never be an issue. But that also means that, very soon, any lady I’m involved with will be likely to be post-menopausal, which solves the breeding problem non-surgically.

I really do wish that the drug companies hadn’t chickened out of developing a male equivalent of the pill. Something that could be more easily reversed would have been a more attractive option, and I don’t like putting the burden on my partner. And condoms just aren’t equivalent, though they’re acceptable as a fallback.

I may yet talk myself into it. But at this point I think that’s unlikely unless my current long-term relationship ends AND some Sweet Young Thing decides she’s interested. Neither of which is especially likely.

Which is one reasons some folks prefer general anaesthesia despite it having much greater risks than local — if they’re out, they don’t have to think about what’s going on. Definitely not a recommended solution, but it is an option.

A little (free!) observation of the woman’s fertility markers, and a little self-control for 2-3 days a month, is all you need. 

Sterilization is like getting your esophagus removed to avoid weight gain.  Yeah, it works, but holy mackerel, there are better options.

So maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t choose med school.

Talking to my boyfriend made me understand that nope, morning wood isn’t always sexual, and nope, sometimes I can’t rely on pure nudity and do have to make a sincere effort to arouse him (how horrid!). 

Is it taboo somehow to say that women might not know everything about male physiology and sexuality now, or that some women make presumptions? 

Most people who know me well weren’t terribly surprised or bothered, and people who didn’t know me well were the ones who would have reactions.  Since I didn’t know them well, I didn’t really care.

When I told the folks, my mom said something like “did you at least SAVE SOME?” while my dad just chuckled.  Neither were too surprised, nor do they ever bring it up. 

The wife’s was childfree long before we met, so neither of us has really ever been “baby bingoed” by the people we know – we’ve been pretty lucky with that.