LIST OF DOCTORS IN THE US WHO WILL PERFORM FEMALE STERILIZATION
Hello everyone- the following is a link to a Google doc containing hundreds of doctors in the US, Canada and Europe who are willing to perform female sterilization on individuals who are 21+ regardless of marriage or parental status.
This list has existed for years and is a collaborative effort from patients all over the world to assist people in controlling their own fertility.
This is the document that allowed me to get sterilized this year, as a woman in her 20’s with no partner or children- one 15 minute appointment, one two hour-long hospital visit, and one 15 minute post-op a few weeks later.
The document refers to tubal ligation, however they may offer other methods- for example, bilateral salpingectomy (aka “bisalp”) which is more effective and is becoming more popular with doctors than ligation.
If you know a doctor who performs female sterilization, and they are not on this list, please submit their name and location to the email provided at the top of the document.
The surgery is done and I'm home! I got it this morning and I'm officially fixed with minimal pain!
I'm so happy about this, the staff of the hospital treated me like a king and were very professional and careful of my consent on everyting! I even got a croissant as breakfast lol
As for the pain, it feels like an annoying period but nothing hardcore. The sore throat and the catheter were more painful and annoying than the incisions themselves.
I am SO happy I finally got this surgery! Since my teen years I've been wanting since young. It's so freeing and it feels like a new chapter in my life. Love to my family, my friends, and all the medical staff for being so accepting of my choices and identity! <3
We need more bilateral salpingectomy celebration pics! I'm here to provide hehe
If anyone is curious about the procedure feel free to comment! I'd love to answer!
I've been spayed! My bilateral salpingectomy went fantastic and my surgical team was wonderful and affirming and even put on The National in the OR while I was getting settled because I said it was my favorite band. ❤️
I was so prepared for this to be a difficult fight but it was such a wonderfully powerful and affirming experience having a doctor who never doubted my choice and empowered me as an adult to make adult decisions about my body.
If anyone wants a rec for an incredible NYC-based gynecological surgeon, shoot me an ask. Or if you just have questions about the procedure, I'm happy to answer!
Welp. My doctor got back to me via the pathology report of my uterus. I’m being referred to surgical oncology because pathology didn’t really know how to explain what they found
But on the plus they confirmed I had endometriosis so that’s nice to know
When I was researching tubal sterilization I was reminded of a lot of bullshit that I was told growing up about how dangerous it is and why I should never do it.
So here's your friendly reminder that if your doctor tells you things like
Tubal sterilization can interrupt the blood flow to ovaries
It can cause Tubal Ligation Syndrome (in which your hormones are affected)
The risks outweigh the benefits if you are an otherwise healthy person
Get a new doctor. These are things that shitty nosey family say when they want nieces/nephews and grandkids and expect you to bend over backwards for them. Don't bend over backwards because someone else wants you pregnant when you don't.
Here's a diagram of the ovarian artery. Notice how it has nothing to do with the fallopian tubes. Also the tubes aren't connected to the ovaries, which is something that I don't think a lot of people know.
Tubal Ligation Syndrome is a myth. Again, the tubes are NOT connected to the ovaries and don't play any role in hormone production. It's literally a duct that sits close to the ovaries and catches eggs and guides them to the uterus. You won't gain weight and lose your libido by having egg ducts removed. The simplified Wikipedia article highlights the fact that the tubes are not connected to the ovaries
Tubal sterilization carries the same risks as any abdominal surgery. It is typically performed laparoscopically and is therefore minimally invasive. Afterwards you just need to be good about not lifting more than 15 pounds for two weeks or whatever your doctor tells you to minimize the risk of a hernia. Regret is a whole other ball of wax, but if you're having this done it's likely because you know in your heart of hearts that this is what you want and all you need to do to make this decision is to be honest with yourself about what you want in your life.
I really like this video in which a gynecologist does a great job of explaining the different kinds of tubal sterilization, why total removal of the fallopian tubes (salpingectomy) is most common these days, the risks and benefits, costs, and what to do if your doctor doesn't listen to you
I am very tired of people trying to scare people with uteruses of any gender away from doing what they need with their bodies.
hey moots and other people, I got some news to tell you and I’m very excited about it, I’ve kept it under wraps cause I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell yet but now I’m ready:
today, I had a bilateral salpingectomy, or bisalp for short, it’s where you have both fallopian tubes removed for sterilization or fallopian tube cancer, and I’ve wanted this for a very long time.
I never wanted kids, and knew I never, under any circumstance, wanted to be pregnant or give birth, and i knew that at 13, and at 15 I knew I never wanted kids or pregnancy, and I told my mom about it, and she supported me fully, and a year and a half later I had my first appointment with a gynecologist and I told her my plan, and I fully expected the usual excuses; you’re too young, what if your husband wants kids, but then she supported me and said when I was 18 I could make a consultation appointment with a surgery center a town over, and that’s what happened.
after the consult I got a date set for surgery, and it all went really well, oddly enough I was more nervous about the IVs (needle phobia) than the surgery, and it wasn’t a long surgery either, and the surgery team were very nice, enough to make me tear up actually, and recovery wasn’t bad either, my throat wasn’t happy about having a tube down it, though.
as for me right now, I don’t have any pain, just soreness, I have one incision above my belly button, one by my hip, and one near my gut, everything feels fine, I’m just very tired at the moment :)
If you are comforable, can you talk about what the surgery meant? Like, was ut anything painful, were there complications, something unexpected?
I’m so so happy to answer questions about this and I hope if anyone is on the fence about it that I can give you some perspective if it helps to make a decision! I do want to wait a little longer and make a bigger post about it with some resources once I can confidently discuss the entire recovery and make sure all the billing gets sorted, but I can share some info now, too!
The surgery I had is called a Bilateral Salpingectomy, which is the removal of Fallopian tubes. A lot of providers are switching to this as the standard of care over doing a tubal ligation—my doctor doesn’t do tubal ligations at all anymore! I originally called and tried to make a consult to ask if one was better than the other to have her help me decide which one to do, but she doesn’t even do ligations anyway. Removing the tubes completely is also a HUGE reduction in the risk of ovarian cancer because most ovarian cancer starts in the Fallopian tubes.
You do keep your uterus and ovaries, so you’ll still get periods, and you won’t go into menopause or anything and if you’re a person who likes your ovary hormones you won’t have to take hormones. Everything still works down there, you just won’t have tubes letting eggs loose in your uterus! This also means that if you changed your mind you can still do IVF later in life if you want to carry a child.
If you’re in the United States and you have insurance, CHECK YOUR INSURANCE because this might be completely covered! If your plan is ACA compliant it’s required to cover sterilization as a form of birth control. There are some weird loopholes and we know that insurance will try to dick around and wiggle out of paying, but if everything is in place and it’s coded correctly you might even be able to have this surgery for free. There are TONS of resources and posts on Reddit that can help, and some info here from the National Women's Law Center (pardon the gendered language, if you are a guy!!!!!)
r/childfree on Reddit also has a huge directory of providers who will not give you a hard time about getting sterilized, since so many people have had to navigate doctors refusing to do it or making them jump through hoops if they’re too young or unmarried or whatever. One of the doctors on this list is in my insurance network so I gave her a call. I WAS A LITTLE WEIRDED OUT BECAUSE THE OFFICE WHERE SHE WORKS IS “FAITH BASED” AND THEY HAVE LIKE BIBLES AND PRAYERS ALL OVER THE PLACE???? But tbf that’s pretty common in my area and despite the creepy presence of Jesus in the gynecologist’s office, it was SO easy and she was so friendly and there was no hassle at all and she didn’t push back on me ONCE. I went in and she told me the whole process, answered some questions, and we got to scheduling right away.
From the time I called until the day of surgery it was about two months! I didn't need to do pre-op bloodwork because I had done it recently and my labs all looked fine last year, but I did have an appointment last month for an ultrasound because I had told my doctor about some issues I was having and she had offered to take a look in case there was anything that needed surgical intervention so that she could maybe do it while she was in there doing the bisalp lol, but I didn't need any extra surgery! 🥳
So far I didn’t have any complications and nothing unexpected! The surgery itself took about 45 minutes, and I was at the hospital for about 4 hours. I arrived two hours early to do paperwork and get prepped for surgery (cleaning the incision site, changing into the hospital gown, urine test, pre-op medication, IV, etc) and then I was in recovery for about an hour afterwards before I went home. I remember being awake and talking to the nurse and my sister-in-law and I remember looking at the clock and thought I was in recovery for like 30 minutes but then later on in the day she told me I had been awake for about an hour on and off but I kept falling back asleep. I was in a complete blackout LOL she told me all the stuff I was saying and the jokes I was making and I’m like, yeah that sounds like me LOL but I have ZERO recollection.
Basically they wheel you into the operating room, help you onto the table, and then they gave me some oxygen and asked me to take some deep breaths and next thing I know I’m waking up in recovery! Very easy on my end haha. I read that some people get really nauseous from anesthesia (and apparently the guy next to me was puking his guts out and I was commenting on it but I don’t remember LOL I feel so bad, I hope he didn’t hear me) but I was okay! When I woke up my stomach kinda hurt from the incisions but not in a nausea kinda way.
Mostly it’s just felt like a combination of bad period cramps and like, how your abs feel the day after a hard ab workout. My core is very tender and it’s hard to sit up and I’m trying to move slowly but I’ve been okay walking around and I was fine on the stairs and stuff!
My throat also felt scratchy from being intubated but I was just drinking fluid all day and that helps, and it burned the first time I peed because you get a catheter during surgery but otherwise that’s not an issue. Vaginal bleeding/spotting it also normal for the first couple days but it’s pretty light for me.
I work from home so I’m only taking 2 days off—I worked late on Monday and Tuesday this week so I only have a half day tomorrow to like check my emails and cover some stuff that I’m skipping while I’m out haha but time off work is going to vary depending on what you do. My doctor even told me I’d probably be okay going back to work today but I wanted to take an extra day just to be indulgent with myself. This probably wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t work from home, though, so your situation might not look like mine. I was told I shouldn’t drive my car for a week so I wouldn’t have been able to drive into the office.
Anyway this is something I wanted to do for a long time and honestly it was politics that pushed me to finally take action--I caved and made the consult appointment a couple weeks after the inaguration. The state I live in has made abortion almost impossible and there have been talks about the death penalty for people having abortions, and prosecuting people for leaving the state to have them done elsewhere. A lot of this is Overton window bullshit but it’s just too scary for me to risk. And honestly I’m at a point in my life where I’m not even sure how much interest I have in sex anymore but I am so worried about the potential of being assaulted and having to deal with a pregnancy on top of it, it’s just not worth it. I just really do not want to have to worry about it.
My insurance said they’ll pay for it 100% — there are still some loopholes I’m trying to figure out about my deductible and whatnot and no one is giving me a straight answer LOL but I’m willing to deal with the medical debt for the foreseeable future if I feel safe and just got it over with. The hospital sent me an estimate for like $10,000 LMAO but I think they just plugged the codes into a generator because my insurance said that wasn't correct and that as long as it's coded as being preventative birth control that it will be fine. I am really really feeling very concerned about the future of the ACA and the birth control mandate and reproductive rights so I wanted to get it done while I’m still legally able to, because I wouldn't be surprised if this gets rolled back.
So if you’ve been considering this like please look into getting it done! Check the Reddit list to see if there’s anyone in your area you can talk to for a consult and check if your insurance will take care of it! Not all insurance plans are ACA compliant but if you have an ACA compliant plan you shouldn't have a problem! And if you’re like me and you’ve known you never wanted kids but you just haven’t gotten around to taking measures, it might be wise to just get it done now while we’re still allowed to!!!
