Choosing Freedom: Rest & Sterilization with Rena Martine
A candid conversation on reproductive autonomy, personal empowerment, and sterilization choices
Catch up with rest of this conversation by scrolling to the links at the bottom, or checking out Episode 6 Becoming a Shame-Free Childfree Latina with Rena Martine. Podcast players are also linked at the bottom of this post.
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy.
The final portion of most interviews is when we talk about what being childfree—and by extension, what living your best like, la vida más chévere, looks like for the guest.
And Rena and I were about to do that when we sidetracked into the need for rest.
Here’s a secret most people don’t recognize until it’s too late: rest is required. It’s not a luxury, and it’s not acceptable to call rest laziness. Because that’s society’s way of wrapping shame around our need to rest.
Rest is as necessary as water, food, and air. I’ve done several episodes about this that you can find in the extended show notes.
So let’s talk a little more about rest first.
Rest is Rebellion
Paulette: So you're childfree. That's what we connected on. But everybody at the party was childfree!
Rena: Some of us are still children!
Paulette: I don’t know if this was true for you, but when people would talk about their children at work, back when I was in a corporate situation, I always felt like I am the child. Like I'm too much of a child to even be in this conversation right now.
Rena: Yeah. It's so true. But also, I don't know if you had this experience too, but people were like, “oh, you know, sorry, my kiddo's sick, so I need to leave early.” Or, “oh, my kiddo has a soccer game.” I just wanna go home. Do I need a kiddo to come up with reasons to leave work early?
Paulette: No. That's why PTO exists! I talk about rest being an act of rebellion. And one of the accounts I love on Instagram so much is called The Nap Ministry, and it's black women just telling us all to rest. Stop doing so much and just fucking rest. They also had a book come out.
Rena: I love it. And rest is a form of productivity because it takes work. I was reading about this, that if you are constantly used to doing all the time, that rest can feel very uncomfortable in your body. And so you have to actually get better at learning how to rest. Which might sound ridiculous to some people, but for over-functioners, it's a practice to learn how to just chill the fuck out.
Paulette: I've never heard that term, over-functioners. A lot of people who think they're like Type A or go by the motto, “I'll rest when I'm dead,” especially for people like that, they have to learn the skill of resting. And you only get better at stuff by practicing it.
Practice resting!
The Freedom of Sterilization
This final portion of the interview requires a trigger warning because part of Rena's childfree story includes a terminated pregnancy.
We also talk about:
our respective sterilization choices
what sterilization looks like for us on the other side
PCOS (and here here is a list of other guests who spoke on this too)
But we deal with this in real language. We make jokes, and if that isn't a topic that you're comfortable discussing with your girlfriends or even an intimate partner, then it might sound kind of flippant.
I urge you to continue with an open mind anyway.
What you're getting is pretty much the equivalent of girl talk over a summer rosé. So in essence, a sneak peek at Rena's book. But also this is our reality and I hope you glean something from us being so honest about it.
Paulette: Within like the first few minutes of us meeting, we were talking about what we do for a living. And I'm like, oh, I have this podcast for childfree people. You're like, "oh, I had my tubes tied!"
Rena: Yes, I had them removed, woman!
Paulette: I'm so sorry. You had them removed! I'm still hoping my gynecologist can come on this show and talk about all of the sterilization options available to women. We know for men, you get a vasectomy, great. They're out for a weekend and then they get to go back to their lives. But it's so different for women.
Did you always know you didn't want kids?
Rena: Yes. Although there was a period where I was like, okay, I'll leave the question open. This was when I was married.
Literally on my first date with my former husband, we talked about kids. Cause I wanna put front and center that I don't want them because if this is somebody who definitely wants them, then we're not compatible and we can both go our merry ways. So I'd asked him, what are your thoughts on kids?
He's like, “I definitely want them.” And I said, “well, I definitely don't, so I just wanna be upfront with you on that.” And he was like, “I don't think that's something we need to figure out right now.”
I come to find out later Paulette, because he knew that I was gonna be an aunt for the first time, a few months after that…
Paulette: Oh the manipulative bullshit is about to start!
Rena: He says, “I had a feeling that once you became an aunt that you might change your mind.”
Well, I became an aunt and I did not know that my heart could like open up as wide as it did, and so I thought to myself, “I think I could do it. I think I could do motherhood. I'm not saying I want to, but I think I could.”
Luckily by the time we ended up getting divorced, we had not started trying. So it was not an issue, but I was leaving it open. It was definitely not something I needed. I've had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) my whole life.
I've always been told “Hey, it's gonna be kind of hard for you to get ‘pregnant naturally.’ So whenever you wanna get knocked up, come to us. We're probably gonna have to put you on some fertility stuff,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So I always knew this, and I had never had a pregnancy scare in my whole life. I was like, yeah, I lean pretty infertile, and that's cool.
Fast forward to year before last: I am in a relationship now with my partner who I've been with almost five years, and I had gone off my birth control because I was having some side effects. I had made an appointment to see my new OB/GYN, because I’d switched insurance because I left the county and had to buy my own damn insurance.
So I was in this like few months of limbo where I was off the pill and I had an appointment with my new doctor to talk to her about sterilization, about getting my tubes taken out. And what the heck happened, Paulette? I accidentally got pregnant! Completely unplanned.
I know this might be a polarizing thing to say, but hopefully the target audience for your podcast will not be too offended by this:
I'm grateful that it happened because it kind of gave me a chance to say you thought your whole life this was gonna be a job for you to get pregnant, right? Like, a job, meaning fertility treatment and all this stuff. And here we go, we're gonna hand it to you on a silver platter. And I was 39 at the time. Accidentally getting knocked up at 39 with polycystic ovarian syndrome is kind of unheard of.
So when that pregnancy test came back, I took one of the at home ones, there was no question in my mind that I did not want to keep the baby. And so I'm grateful for the fact that this happened because that question has been answered for me.
Paulette: [It] crystallized that for you.
Rena: So I immediately went into the doctor [and] got a much sooner appointment. I was like, “Hey, I'd like to talk about termination.” I was early enough on where I could just take the at home pill and do it that way, and we made an appointment to get my tubes taken out.
My understanding is that if you're certain that you don't want to have kids, doctors are now recommending you just have the tubes removed instead of tied, because it almost eliminates your risk of ovarian cancer.
But my partner and I, we did have a conversation. “Do I wanna get my tubes taken out? Do you wanna get a vasectomy?” He's 99% sure he doesn't wanna have kids. I'm a hundred percent sure. And if I could also reduce my risk of cancer, why wouldn't I? And let me tell you, the recovery for this procedure was like nothing!
The Covid test they had to do up my nose with the swab the day before the surgery, that was worse than the surgery and the recovery itself.
Paulette: Please tell me more. Because I had an ablation and I would not say recovery was great.
Rena: I had an ablation at the same time. You mean to stop your period and all of that?
Paulette: Yup.
Rena: Okay. So that's actually a funny story and I wanna talk about the ablation too, because I didn't even know this was an option.
I've had terrible periods my whole life. When I went in to see my OB/GYN to schedule the tube surgery, I joked with her and I said, “and by the way, if there's something you could do to stop my period so that I don't have periods anymore, but I'm not thrown into menopause, that would be really great too!” That was a joke.
She said, “oh, actually, yeah, there's a thing we can do for that.” The ablation like you've had done. My mind was blown, Paulette. I didn't even know this was an option! I said, “okay, can you just do that while I'm knocked out?” And so she did that.
My recovery was really easy. Maybe I'm not reflective of the typical recovery process. I had to wear a pad for a few days, but I kind of took it easy. Had to wait a few weeks to start having sex again.
But the surgery itself has done laparoscopically, so I have two tiny little incision marks on either side of my belly button and then like a small one on the inside of my belly button and that's it.
So they don't go up through the vaginal canal. It's all just done laparoscopically.
Paulette: Wait, they did the ablation that way too?
Rena: No, they did the ablation vaginally, but the tube part was done laparoscopically. I was asleep. My doctor asked me what kind of music I wanted to have playing in the operating room, it was all women's staff. This was like my dream surgery. This was seriously one of the most liberating days of my life.
But I will say this, I posted about having this surgery on Instagram and I lost followers. When a year before I had posted about a mental health condition I had that required me to be hospitalized, and I gained followers because of that. So that's saying something about what we're allowed to be as women: [it’s] easier for us to understand losing our mind than it is not wanting to be moms.
So that's my story of being childfree. I have a bunch of barely hanging on plants and I have a really cute Siamese cat [who meowed right on cue here!].
Paulette: That's awesome. Thanks so much for sharing that. So [my husband] Ryan, he said I was charred like a bourbon barrel and he loves bourbon. That's our funny little joke! [But] it grew back, my periods came back.
Rena: Okay. How long did it take?
Paulette: Nine months.
Rena: Did you go get it done again?
Paulette: No. She told me it was a possibility, of course it is. And the periods are much lighter. They are like nothing I ever experienced without having hormonal intervention. When I was on the pill, I didn't have a period for like 20 years. It was the best time in my life! But [only] in terms of not having a period.
Everything else that came with it was less than desirable. Like the plumpness of my lips has come back. The dryness of my scalp has gone away, not being on birth control pills. It's very interesting how the body responds to these things. But I do have a period and I do get cramps like I used to.
We were joking around, my gynecologist and I, who I love, I've been seeing her for almost my entire adult life as well. She's also childfree, which I love for her. I was like, “I just want a hysterectomy.”
My mom had one at 36, but she had fibroids and endometriosis and all this other stuff I do not suffer from. They did find a fibroid, so they took care of that, but it was tiny. It’s not a condition I suffer from that would lead to a hysterectomy making sense. So she's like, “well, if this doesn't take, maybe it'll be easier for you to talk me into a hysterectomy. Or you could wait till you hit menopause.”
And I'm like, why do I have to?
Rena: Right. You're like, just make it stop now.
Paulette: I hadn't thought about having it done again.
Rena: Because I think that's kind of what you do, right? I don't know. I haven't gotten any sort of bleeding or spotting in the year and a half since I got it done. And the second it happens again, I'm gonna call my doctor and be like, “okay, time to come in for a tune-up!”
I'm done. I never suffered from bad cramps, but I still get the phantom PMS symptoms, you know, get a few pimples. Oh, it must be my mysterious time of the month where I'm not actually bleeding.
Paulette: I remember the first time I experienced cramps again. I was like, what is that?!
Because it had been so many decades since I had felt that pain. I was horrified. What is my body doing? And then I was realized oh fuck, those are cramps. I haven't had those since I was a teenager.
Rena: It's funny though, cause this can actually be a polarizing topic for some women.
I had a few women reach out to me after I talked about my ablation saying, I love getting my period. It's a reminder that I'm connected to the universe, it's a reminder that I am a woman. And so I wanna put that caveat out there to any listeners who might be like horrified right now, that we all have different ways in which we connect to our womanhood and femininity.
And as someone who's periods that made my life a living hell for most of my life, unpredictable bleeding and everything, this is not a pleasant reminder of the fact that I'm a woman.
Paulette: Well, thank you so much for being here. You are just a light. With your beautiful pink hair. Everybody go follow Rena on Instagram because she's doing the work every day out there for free.
She's giving you all kinds of great information for free, but also join her newsletter and then sign up for a consultation with her because I think we can all use it. We can all use it.
Find Rena online at:
And don’t forget to pick up some wine from Cellars Wine Club!
Listen now on Apple:
Or on Spotify: