“Can I demand that my husband be sterilized?”
Liselotte (37), mother of June (5), Reza (4) and Max (1): “From my first period it was bumblebees in my stomach. I was twelve years old, and I always felt my period. So I took the pill from the age of fourteen, supplemented with condoms a few years later when my first boyfriend came along. I never felt well. I was bleeding right through my pill use, always feeling bloated and a bit on the depressed side from a young age.
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I was overjoyed when I met my husband and after two years we decided to go for children. Bye bye artificial hormones, bye bye menstrual misery. For nine months I was in a kind of ecstasy. After I gave birth, it took months before my period came back, at least eight. The first menstrual period that followed was heavier than anything I had experienced before. Fortunately, six months later I was pregnant again, and I immediately forgot about the discomfort.
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Birth control
We are now three beautiful and healthy children further, and our wish for children is complete. This means that we have had to think about contraception again for a little over a year now. Since then, the only option for me has been condoms, because after twenty-five years of polonaise I never want hormones and IUDs on my body again. But my husband thinks those condoms are a hassle, and if I’m honest, in the heat of the moment I also prefer to say that we can leave them on. And so we are currently a bit of a mess, with all the associated risks of pregnancy.
Sterilization
Sterilization on my husband would solve everything in one fell swoop, but you guessed it: he doesn’t dare. He thinks it affects his masculinity and is afraid of the injection in his scrotum. “Do you realize that my bottom is stitched together three times?” I’ve yelled ten times, but he doesn’t seem to understand the comparison.
Out of frustration I’ve denied him sex a few times, but of course I also have myself with that. I truly believe that I have now done enough to induce and prevent pregnancies; can I demand that my husband be sterilized?”
More episodes of the dilemma? Every Tuesday there is a new story on KekMama.nl. Read the previous dilemmas here.
