Dr. Charles Monteith is currently training with Dr. Berger to become a tubal reversal specialist. In his personal blog, Dr. Monteith describes his first day working alongside Dr. Berger at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center. He talks about the four patients that he met that day, as well as how it made him feel to know that Dr. Berger had helped all four women achieve their dreams of tubal ligation reversal and had given them the chance to correct mistakes made in the past.
My First Day at Nourishing Hopes and Dreams
My first day as a tubal ligation reversal specialist will always be remembered. I began my training with Dr. Berger during the first week of January 2008. We started the day off by meeting the patients who would be undergoing tubal ligation reversal at Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center.
I met four patients of different ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities . They were all very different people who all desired the same thing: reversal of their tubal ligation.
- The first patient was in her forties, she had emigrated from Ethiopia, her last child was more than twelve years ago, and she desired a chance to have another child.
- The second patient was in her thirties and her previous husband had died unexpectedly. She had children but her fiancé did not have any children. Together, they desired a child.
- The third patient,in her late twenties, had two children and a tubal ligation. Several years later she subsequently found a new partner and he desired a child with her. So while he was deployed overseas, she came for a tubal ligation and a chance for a new future when he returned from his military deployment.
- The fourth patient was in her late twenties and had several children. When she and her partner were in their early twenties they were financially maxed out and she had her tubes tied as an act of desperation. Several years later, she and her husband subsequently became financially stable and they wanted another child. They considered IVF but decided that a reversal was a better option for them. We also learned of an extremely sad story from this patient. She had a friend who had a tubal ligation. This friend had all of her four children die overnight in a house fire. This friend desperately has hope for a future reversal of her tubal ligation and was hoping to obtain a tubal reversal in the future.
For as long as a live, I will never be able to forget these women, their partners and the stories they told. I can never forget their quest to add children to their lives. For them I hope they attain what they desire.
My first lesson as a Tubal Reversal Specialist was that no one can predict the future, but if you always look hard enough you can always find a way - and someone to help- to correct prior mistakes.
More about Charles Monteith, MD
