Infernal menstrual pain: “Just have a child”

On a sunny late summer day, my gynecologist puts the gun to my chest: “Either you take the pill or you’ll just get pregnant,” she says. I'm standing on the taz balcony with the phone to my ear, with Berlin's Friedrichstrasse below me, and I don't know how to answer.

I actually wanted to find out what options I have to get my period beast under control. For years I have suffered from excessive blood loss and pain that can only be combated with high-dose tablets. Since the first time I sat in the chair with her, my doctor has said this is normal. Now this tough announcement: a daily hormone intake or a cute little baby.

"Or they can take out your uterus. But you're still too young for that," she adds when I take too long to answer. I let the last comment pass me by after a deep breath.

Instead, I say that a child is out of the question. And that the therapeutic approach to pregnancy doesn't make sense to me. After all, your period will come back at some point. What then? Another child? And another one? Your answer: It used to be like that.

What kind of business model does my doctor run? Does she get a commission for every baby to counteract the historically low birth rate? Is this the healthcare innovation everyone is always talking about?

Researchers call what my doctor does medical gaslighting: downplaying patients’ symptoms or not taking them seriously. Women, queer people and people of color are particularly affected by this.

Motherhood is a life-changing decision. It is not a treatment method that can be written out as a prescription, nor is it a rhetorical tool to sell women on the pill. What really offends me is this: I expected more empathy and solidarity from a doctor who not only works with women every day in the most intimate context, but is one herself.

Shouldn't she, of all people, who have been feeling her way to my cervix regularly for seven years, have a little more sensitivity?

What I find just as shocking as her tactlessness is the fact that the three options she gives are actually the only ones. Although humanity has been cloning sheep and flying to the moon for decades, period problems have never been a priority.

What is still within the scope of what is medically possible for my doctor: an examination to get to the bottom of my symptoms. But that doesn't work for them.

When I ask if she could test me for endometriosis - a chronic, inflammatory disease of the uterus - I get the next bell. Do I even know how expensive such a diagnosis is? And that our healthcare system is currently undergoing massive upheaval? No wonder it costs a lot of money when, according to studies, it takes an average of seven years for a patient who goes to the doctor for endometriosis to get a diagnosis. I would like to smash my cell phone onto the sidewalk below me.

At the end of the conversation she asks whether she should prescribe me the pill. She does not offer a prescription for a dose of sperm for the pregnancy option. The health system does have its gaps. Evke Bakker