What exactly does being STERILISED mean ?

[milkmonsters]

Don't know which Board to put this question on!

I'm 42 this year, I have a 3 year old and an 8 month old and feel blessed enough to have two healthy children, but am no longer in a stable relationship (not that it ever was), so am thinking about being sterilised.

Bizarrely enough, despite having Googled this and come up with quite irrelevant answers, I have no idea whatseover this involves? Is it the same as having your womb removed? Is it just 'tying your tubes up' and what does that mean exactly?

I'm a total hospital-phobe so can anyone reply who's been sterilised and tell me what it involves and how they recovered, or link me to a plain and simple website that explains all!!

Thankyou

There are different ways of being sterlised.

One of the more modern ways and that was recommended to my by a gynae friend was having these spring like things inserted into the ends of your fallopian tubes to completely block them.

You do not need to have a hysterectomy (have womb taken away) to be sterlised, nor have your ovaries removed they usually "do" something to the tubes to stop the eggs travelling anywhere.

However female sterilisation seems to have quite a high failure rate according to the website statistics I've read

Pretty much along the lines of tubes being tied.
Google tubal ligation for more info

Thanks found the info now, and this, which is so indicative of our times it's laughable

'it is technically possible that your spouse could sue you for depriving her of the chance of having further children.'