***Content Warning: I will be detailing various parts of my pre- and post-op surgery here, including details of my personal experience with the procedure, for those who expressed interest in the tubal ligation procedure. If you get squeamish, or are not interested in those details, I will have the section marked with *** and another content warning right beforehand.

On July 15th, 2019, at the ripe age of 28, I underwent a tubal ligation. In this particular procedure, they completely removed my tubes, as opposed to tying them off or just snipping them. This was a personal preference and had been discussed during my surgery consult.

I have essentially always known that I have not wanted biological children. This was not a last minute, random, or spur-of-the-moment decision (not that I need your approval or permission). I know there will always be people who ask “what if you regret it?” or “You’re so young, how do you know what you want?” or “but what if you change your mind?” But the thing is, you don’t know me like I know me. Or else you wouldn’t have to ask those questions. If, and that’s a big IF, sometime in the far future I decide that I want to have kids of any kind of my life, they will be adopted.

There are enough children in the world who don’t have parents at all. They deserve better. So much better. I know I can’t do much about overpopulation and climate change since I’m only one person, but at the very least, I have decided that I don’t want to create a child when there are plenty of them who already exist and need a family. So we have decided that adoption will be the only option for our family.

*** The next part of this blog details the check-in process up until discharge from the hospital. If you are not interested in reading about the procedure, or my experiences, you are free to stop reading at this point. Especially if you get squeamish from reading about vomiting, needles, etc. ***

The check-in process was fairly easy. I guess I had already done a lot of the paperwork online through the Banner hospital patient portal. So after checking in, signing a couple of papers, and heading to the surgery waiting room, it didn’t take more than 10 minutes to get called by the nurse into pre-op.

Pre-op involved several things, like peeing in a cup (I believe this was for one last pregnancy test just in case), and rinsing my mouth with mouthwash (this was to make sure my mouth was clean for the breathing tube they put in while I’m under). Then I got to my bed area and wiped myself down down with antibacterial wipes and put my gown on. Once I finished climbing into the bed, the IV nurse came to put in my IV for fluids (I hadn’t had any fluids since last night and they wanted to re-hydrate me before the procedure).

About 10-15 minutes later, the IV site started hurting a bit. It didn’t bother me at first but then it started getting a little worse. And then I got a bit nauseous. Once I started feeling warm and clammy, I knew something was wrong. I pushed the nurse call button to bring the nurse in, but the remote didn’t light up or anything so I wasn’t sure if it had worked. No one seemed to be coming, so I pressed it again a little harder and still wasn’t sure if it worked. I was feeling more and more nauseous by the second so I sat up a bit and put my head over the railing in case I threw up. I weakly called out for a nurse, and the next thing I remember, I’m waking up with two nurses looking over me asking me how I was feeling. I’m not sure how long I had been out but it had at least been enough time for the nurses to put leads all over me, get an oxygen tube in my nose, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, and a pulse ox clip on my finger.

At first they thought it was a seizure because apparently my eyes were slightly open and rolled back and I guess it looked like a seizure to them, but when I started coming to I told them I never had a history of seizures but I did have a history of passing out from having a fellow phlebotomy student stick me in my hand. So after discussing it amongst themselves and repeatedly asking me how I was doing, they finally attributed it to being a vasovagal syncope (I passed out).

Every related nurse and doctor and even the anesthesiologist came to check up on me. They asked if I still wanted to do the surgery and I said yes, I absolutely still wanted to do the surgery. So they just kept checking up on me, and left the blood pressure cuff on me so the machine could repeatedly check my pressure every 10 minutes or so.

Once everyone had decided I was stable, Steven was allowed to come up to be with me before they took me to surgery. Since the surgery before mine had taken a little longer than expected, Steven and I watched a bit of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation on the TV in the room. Steven joked around by saying to me, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get your tubes tied.” What a supportive guy hahaha

Finally I was wheeled into surgery and Steven had to say goodbye for now. Once in the operating room, they had me scooch over to the operating table, and then covered me with a couple more blankets since it was cold in there. They then put an oxygen mask on my face, and I was completely out in mere seconds. I didn’t even get to count down like they do in Grey’s Anatomy!

The surgery itself involved three small incisions: one in my belly button, and one on either side of my lower abdomen. They’re incredibly tiny. A cool thing about how they closed is the fact that they used skin glue instead of stitches or staples!

The following pictures show the before and after. I circled the Fallopian tubes so hopefully you will notice the difference between when they exist and when they have been removed.

Before:

After!

The next thing I remember, which seemed to be only a few seconds later, was waking up groggy and confused in the post-op recovery area.

There was a nurse sitting between me and another patient on her other side, recording vitals or whatever on a computer. I don’t remember much about waking up, but at some point, she asked about my pain and then gave me some applesauce and a Percocet with some water. Unfortunately the only food options they had were apple sauce, jello, and graham crackers, which wasn’t really great for being on Keto, but I figured I could stray just for a day or two. I chose the applesauce since it was the safest option.

I asked the nurse if I had said anything funny or silly while coming out of anesthesia and she said I hadn’t. So in case it wasn’t the case before, I am officially the most boring person on the face of this planet hahahaha!

My mouth was SUPER dry and my body was shaking a lot. The nurse explained that the shaking was because I was coming out of anesthesia. She pushed some medication into my IV to help calm that down. She had to do that twice. She also gave me medicine for nausea.

I drifted in and out a bit because I felt so sleepy and groggy. But at some point they finally let Steven come back. He said the surgeon came to talk to him, and tell him everything went well. They also gave him the pictures they took of my insides during surgery! Steven had been listening to a podcast about the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of out of body experiences, and he was disappointed when I told him I didn’t see any tunnels with bright lights or hear any voices.

Then I started feeling nauseous again. I told the nurse I was nauseous and she gave me a throw up bag and I puked into it. I wasn’t sure if maybe it was the applesauce considering how long I’ve been on Keto, or if it was just what I’d been through that day already and the meds. She pushed more anti-nausea meds into my IV and I felt better.

Steven spoon fed me more apple sauce once I felt a little better, and gave me water. He tried to show me cute cat pictures but I was still having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I think I fell asleep a couple times. I had absolutely no sense of time.

I did throw up a second time as well. The nurse was helping someone else but thankfully she had shown Steven where the puke bags were so he was able to grab one for me. I puked more that second time and the nurse came back over to check on me as soon as she was able.

The stipulation to my discharge was that I had to pee, to ensure that my bladder hadn’t been affected by the surgery. They were pushing as many fluids as they could, but even after several hours in recovery, my bladder just didn’t seem to be filling up very quickly. They even did a quick ultrasound to see how full it was getting (result: not very). I told them I would be willing to try anyways. The nurse said she would let me try as soon as she finished pushing the rest of the meds through my IV.

The next nurse on duty transitioned with my current one (he was also the one who did the ultrasound of my bladder). He wheeled my bed right up in front of the bathroom to make sure I was able to get there without risk of falling. While I was trying to get something to come out of my bladder, Steven was shown to the hospital pharmacy to get my prescription meds. I succeeded in my quest, and they said they would get my discharge started. Around 8pm that night, I was finally allowed to go home! (Mind you, I went into surgery around 1pm, and we had to be at the hospital at around 10am).

*** End of content warning ***

I was severely delusional about the time it would take to recover from this. Weeks before the surgery when I was requesting time off work, I legitimately thought I’d be able to get back to work on Wednesday (surgery was on Monday). Thankfully my supervisor was not as delusional as I was and strongly advocated that I take as many days as needed and work from home only when able the first week.

Surprisingly enough, the pain I’m having the hardest time dealing with is the pain from the gas inserted in my abdomen. Not the pain from the incision sites. You can learn more about laparoscopic surgery and the gas pains in the referenced link.

I’m super thankful to everyone who has stopped by to visit and take care of me. Between several different people, my friends and family have helped me up off the couch, brought me things, babysat me while Steven had to work, brought me food, supervised me while I showered to make sure I was okay, did my dishes and cleaned my kitchen, answered the door for me, and best of all, kept me company. Your support means everything to me and I am truly grateful.