Kayla Payne

This women’s history month — and this past year — has meant so much to me. On October 12th, 2022 I got a bilateral salpingectomy. Colloquially, you hear people say they got their “tubes tied,” or “snipped,” for those with testicles. As I approach my six months since getting this surgery, I want to share what I wrote the day I got back from the outpatient procedure. Out of all the emotions I could feel after a minor abdominal surgery, what I felt more than anything was true liberation. I had carried this weight that my body was made for motherhood alone, and on that day, I became free of it.

“The road to getting to today was not well-paved. I am fortunate that when I approached my parents about this, I was met with total and complete understanding. Although I did explain that this decision was borne out of fear for the reality of black maternal health, and the asinine political climate, I never felt it was something that was a condition of their support. My doctor was more than apprehensive, and it took statements of support from my therapist, psychiatrist, my parents, and my printed resume to prove my personal successes made at my age to almost convince her. The true selling point was a threat to leave the practice that has served my family for over 20 years, but that is simply business. Regardless, I am here today having had the world’s least complicated surgical procedure, and I could not be more relieved.

Though there were moments that made me feel this way, my friends, family, and one amazing psychiatrist reaffirmed my decision with compassion and reason. My incapacity to no longer naturally conceive children does not make me less capable of becoming a mother or a caretaker, being loved or building a life with a partner. It is my greatest hope that my decision to pursue a salpingectomy will serve as an ongoing source of pride in my commitment to my own personal health and well-being. And, that we can work collectively to dismantle the sexist, racist, and patriarchal ideology that the medical field perpetuates. We are capable of making decisions without permission from potential male partners, when the decision ultimately impacts our own lives first and foremost.

Here is to unconventional paths to motherhood and claiming femininity under your own terms. And, to speaking up for what you want, what you need, and what you deserve.

“The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear each other’s truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.” — an excerpt from bell hook’s All About Love”