My cousin is 22 and she's had two children already. She has a genetic disorder that causes miscarriages (however she's not miscarried yet so how true is that?) and had a cyst on one of her ovaries. After her first child, she had the ovary with the cyst removed. She's contemplating having the second removed, because not only does she have an infant and a toddler, but she has a pre-teen/early teenaged stepson. Personally, I think it would be hard to take care of any one of those, let alone all three at once.

Her doctors don't want to do it, either, but the fact that she's had two kids when she wasn't supposed to be able to have any may help her get her point across. Plus, not having the other removed may cause problems for her in the future as far as general health.

I don't know the technical terms of any of this, just the layman's terms they used to explain it to me. I do know that my grandmother miscarried six times between my dad and my aunt, which was why my cousins got checked out in the first place.

Interesting. There are a number of issues it could be: clotting disorder, autoimmune issue, etc.. While those disorders can increase the chance of miscarriage, it doesn't mean it will happen every time. It sounds like she was fortunate to be able to carry her two pregnancies to term.

Obviously, you only know what you've been told, but I'm curious as to what kind of cyst required complete removal of her ovary. Most ovarian cysts are benign and resolve on their own (though they can be a bitch if they burst). Those that don't resolve can easily be removed without danger to the ovary. I know you don't know and you don't have to answer, it's more of a rhetorical question than anything...

Yeah I have absolutely no idea. I do know that my aunt had severe reproductive problems in which some of her stuff was connected to other stuff - an ovary connected to something else? I have no idea - but she had EVERYTHING removed. That was not elective surgery so I don't really know what's going on there.

All I know is that I have my period, and sperm+egg=babies, and most kinds of BC (besides condoms) are risky for me. That's really it.

Oh and that I have no STDs, nor do I have cervical cancer. Thanks, Pap!

I hate that Pap Smear.
*checks to see when I need to get my next one*

I wish some of my clients would use that darn Family Planning coverage that we have.. argh..you should not be 29 on your 7th child. Just saying..

Also good to note... a portion of that 5% who wish to have the procedure reversed don’t want to because they desire to have children, but because they don’t like the side effects of the tubal ligation. What they are, I’m not sure, but I know of someone who had one reversed, and it was for this purpose. She said that having the procedure done made her realize how much she’d rather just take a pill every day. It is invasive surgery, but these side effects also don’t happen with everyone.

There are doctors out there who will perform a TL / Essure on a nulliparous woman. It might take some perseverance to find one, especially if you're young, but they do exist.

Tubals are reversible, but it's invasive surgery (then again, so is the tubal), and the success rate isn't very high. Essure is not reversible.

My doctor refused to refer for a tubal ligation when I was 37, and divorced with two kids. She said "Do you know how many women I've had as patients who met a new man, got married, and decided they really wanted a child with the new man?" Well, I know ME. There is no way in hell I'd get married again and there's REALLY now way in Hell I'd have more babies. She started giving me the Depo shot at that time. The new primary care doesn't want me on Depo since I'm over 40 now. Luckily I'm not dating and I can just abstain now because my cycle has become extremely unpredictable and my daughter is a result of condoms and foam together. I'm clearly pretty fertile.

My GYN just gave me a sample of Seasonale today. I'm excited about trying it. I don't like dealing with my period every month. And I also knew about that "trick" before Seasonale came out--my last GYN told me to just keep taking the pills back to back.

This is my second try on BC pills. I tried Yaz and HATED it. I had consistent bleeding for a month on those, so now I'm trying the Seasonale (higher dosage of hormones this time).

Dr.'s generally try not to do this unless there is a medical reason to it. They do it in case the woman wants to "reverse" her mind and have children. There generally is no "set age" as to when they will give one.
Generally, if there is a medical condition then the dr will try to do everything besides a tubal litigation/hyerstectomy (?) for a woman under the age of 25. They will try to do a d-n-c or anything but! In the past, like about 30 years ago, if the woman wanted this type of procedure, the doctor was more willing to do this, but things changed.

I know your question has already been answered, but I find it interesting that any 20 yr. old male can walk into a doctor's office and have a vasectomy done and won't be asked "are you sure you don't want children in the future?"


I've been on ortho tri-cyclen for 2.5 years and I love it. It was the first pill I tried, and I had/have no side effects. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones :)

I don't like the tri-cyclic pills (I've tried a lot of them.) The three cycles seem kind of forced and awkward - I had side effects from the constantly changing levels of hormones. Plus tri-cyclic pills are no good if you tend to have spotting - you need a consistent level of hormones.

Joliebelle, I'm glad you love Ortho tri-cyclen! Every girl's got to find what works for her. And the Ortho cases are a lot cuter than the case my pills come in. :)

The ovaries end up getting cancerous and the cancer for some reason, quickly seems to spread to the entire cervix. This is generally done where there is a family hx of fibroid tumors or cervical cancer.
The cysts can and cannot be benign, and the problem is that one cysts becomes another, and another, ect until the woman has PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome).
The real problem is when those cysts burst, it is very horrendous for the woman because they can quickly and easily cause the woman to become anemic.
A lot depends on the doctor if they feel that the woman needs to have such an invasive procedure or not. The reason why they don't want her to do this is because they go into your uterus through either under your stomach or the area above your pelvic bone. Either way, the stitches remain there for 6 weeks and you may/may not continue to bleed and it's a constant thing of making sure that the area is clean, yadda, yadda, yadda. Not to mention the pain and the inability to bend down, over, around, you know, no swinging from chandliers (?) or vacuuming or picking up children, etc. It does pretty much slow you down.

I have to chuckle at this. I was on ortho as my first pill ever. It worked great!

And then I moved to Scotland, and my prescription ran out. I took my pack to the GP and said, "this is what I have now, it works great!". And she said..."what the heck? I've never seen this. You mean Americans STILL use tri-cyclic pills? We haven't prescribed them in YEARS!" They didn't want to switch to something that would make me nuts, so she looked through her desk reference, and got nothing. So she gave me a script for single cycle pills...which worked even better than the tricyclen (skin, shorter lighter periods). And then I decided I couldn't be arsed with remembering and so I opted for the IUD.

Man, you guys know a lot about my uterus now. All in the name of open dialog!

Are we behind the curve in reproductive medicine?