A Tubal Ligation After Four Pregnancies in Four Years

Linda and Dave were married in 1988 when they were both 23.  Dave saw one or two children in their future, Linda two or three or more, but they agreed that before starting a family they needed to build a nest egg, and so Linda went on the Pill.  Originally from Albany, the couple settled in New York City where over the next few years they established themselves in their careers and did well enough financially to buy a brownstone in Brooklyn. 

On Mother’s Day, 1994, Linda had a miscarriage at twelve weeks.  The entire pregnancy had been shadowed with uncertainty—her doctor, in fact, had advised her not to tell a lot of people she was pregnant.  Although not a complete surprise, the miscarriage was a significant event.  Linda's body expelled the fetus and the doctor examined her to see that no fetal tissue remained.  It happened that the ob/gyn practice shared space with an infertility clinic, and the doctor pointed out that, unlike the patients in the other practice, Linda had no problem conceiving.  Linda found his words encouraging and felt her problems were minor compared to those of the fertility patients.

Her first child, a daughter, was born six weeks early in February of 1995.  The baby was healthy but small and so was placed in the neonatal unit.  Seeing the other babies in the unit was an eye-opener for Linda.  Once again, she felt fortunate in comparison.

Twenty three months later, a second daughter was born.  At this point, Linda surmised that Dave’s cup was full, and that, in fact, further children would place on the marriage more strain than it could bear.  When her second daughter was four months old--and still breastfeeding--Linda became pregnant once again.  With one daughter in a stroller and the other in her arms, she picked up a home pregnancy test at the pharmacy.  The young African American woman behind the counter gave her a big smile and shook her head.  Although the test came out positive, Linda delayed, hope against hope, going to her ob/gyn practice until she was four and one half months along.  When she lay down on the table, the doctor pulled up her blouse, looked at her stomach and said, “Oh, yeah!”  With her previous pregnancies, Linda had told the doctor she didn’t want to know the sex of the baby.   This doctor, however, was new to the practice and not knowing Linda’s preference, waved an ultrasound wand over her belly and announced it was a boy.  Linda and Dave were content with two girls and neither had yearned for a boy to complete the family.  Nevertheless, Linda felt it softened the blow when she phoned Dave directly after the doctor’s appointment to confirm the news both had feared.  

Linda’s new fear was for her marriage.  For the first time in her life, the option of abortion crossed her mind.  She wouldn’t have chosen that route, she says now.  Besides, by the time she saw the doctor, the pregnancy had advanced beyond the limit for a legal termination.

The unspoken agreement between Linda and Dave was that birth control was her responsibility.  Since putting chemicals into her body in the form of the Pill had become repugnant to her, she discussed the matter with her doctor and decided to have her tubes tied.  While she was still on the delivery table, however, and the doctor raised the topic again, Dave, who had long talked of having a vasectomy said, “No, I’m going to take care of things on my end.”  As the weeks went by, however, and he took no action, Linda took matters into her own hands.  She had to sign papers all over again and allow for a thirty day grace period before, finally, having her tubes tied, a decision for which she has no regrets.  The procedure itself, on the other hand, was harder on her than she’d expected.  An overnight stay in the hospital deemed unnecessary, she left the doctor’s office in considerable discomfort to return home to a toddler and two babies.  Dave did not take time off from work, but, fortunately, a woman friend accompanied her to her appointment and helped out at home afterwards.

As Linda feared, Dave never quite adjusted to being the father of three stair-step children.  It was his decision to move out of the house three years ago, and he and Linda are about to complete divorce proceedings.  Their marriage, long shaky, could not endure the tumult of three vibrant, unique young people moving into adolescence.  He continues to parent at a remove, while the tension level in the household has dropped dramatically.  Certain that their marriage lacked a sacramental quality, Linda plans to pursue an annulment.

A Memory--Retrieved or Fabricated

Jonathan Gottshall in The Story-Telling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human warns, “Be skeptical of…your own blog posts...” The past does not exist, he says, but we make sense of our lives and give them purpose by drawing from various parts of the brain to construct sustaining fictions.

I remember that the mother of a childhood friend of mine kept a calendar in her kitchen on which she marked off certain days.  Years later it occurred to me that the calendar was a birth control guide.  When I mentioned this recently to my friend, she was astonished and remembered no such calendar.  My friend’s mother was a gifted and devoted mother, but, possibly, she would not have chosen to have six babies.  Rhythm, on the other hand, may be the reason she didn’t have ten.  In that time before Our Bodies Ourselves and the like, women didn’t talk so openly with each other about birth control.  My own mother, I tend to think, would keep a rhythm calendar—if she kept one at all—in a drawer in her bedroom and reveal it to no one.  I feel grateful and privileged that my friend’s mother collected personal data so openly—if indeed that’s what she was doing and the calendar really did exist and my memory isn’t playing tricks on me.

Today, thanks to such blogs as Koala Bear and Christian Mommy, a range of personal, on-going stories concerning birth control are readily available.  That doesn't excuse me, however, from doing more field work in unearthing stories from women of all ages.  So many are willing to share if only someone asks.