Snip snip!
After getting pregnant with Colby by merely holding hands (swear!), then our IUD baby Lily, and then twins, it was quite clear that Clint and I were insanely fertile. At one of my first OB appointments after finding out about the twins, I informed my doctor that I definitely, 100… no 1,000% wanted my tubes tied on the operating table.
I then reminded him of this fact at nearly every subsequent appointment.
The closer we got to the delivery date, the more we talked about what a tubal meant, how it would be performed, etc.
“I will knot each one of the tubes, snip the ends, and then burn the tubes,” he told me.
“No good,” I replied. “I want double knots.”
He laughed.
I was serious!
On delivery day, after the dudes were freed from their tiny gooey prison, my tubes were tied. Whew.
Several weeks later, as we were nearing that infamous, “6 weeks postpartum, it’s okay to have sex again” date, I started getting really nervous. I told Clint that if he wanted to ever have enjoyable sex again, he’d better get snipped.
He was more than a bit wary, thinking about needles…
“Needles? Needles?! Try having a child doing headers on your pubic bone while you try to push him out for two hours after having been in labor for 24 hours. Then try having your abdomen sliced open and your inside bid-ness getting squished around while your child is yanked from your incision. Oh, and try feeling an enormous needle Into. Your. Spine. as you receive an epidural or spinal block.”
…hanging out all free willy…
“Oh puh-lease. Everyone and their mother has seen me all kinds of naked, bloody, and barfing.”
…and the whole concept of being “violated…”
“Violated?! Try being violated by not one, but two little alien-beings for 38 weeks and 4 days [when you're pregnant with twins, you get to count every single day]. Then, try breastfeeding those little boob monkeys, becoming a slave to the boob every few hours during the day.”
Let’s just say I was less than supportive of his fears.
He went through with it, thankfully. And, because my doctor knows how much I enjoy medical stuff, he let me come in and watch Clint’s vasectomy. (I watched when he did the boys’ circumcisions too. Honestly, your imagination probably thinks it’s worse than it is. They screamed more from the iodine being splashed over their goods than actually getting circ’d.)
It was fascinating! He showed me step-by-step how it worked. I did have to keep reminding myself that I was there for Clint and not to be a wanna-be med student, so I had to do my wifely comforting duties, but dude. It was cool.
That was in December. He left with instructions to have his semen tested at the lab in 3 months or 25 ejaculations (something like that), or whatever came last. Time has come and gone. (Oh, the pun in that sentence. Please tell me you laughed at that.)
This week, we received a letter in the mail that read:
Dear Clint,
Our records show that your doctor has ordered labs which have not been completed. At your earliest convenience, please come to the lab to have them drawn.
Clint looked up at me, grinned, and said, “Wow. They draw the semen too? Doctor’s appointment with a happy ending!”
Too funny.
So, in bringing up this whole vasectomy thing to friends, I have found that a lot of people have some really funny stories! Here’s one of my favorites:
Our doctor’s office is 45 minutes from our house, but semen samples have to be delivered within 30 minutes or they’re no good. So, my husband and I would load the kids up, he would drop us off at a restaurant that was within the 30 minute distance to the office, pull his car around to a secluded area, take care of… business, and then come back to get us. We’d then head to the doctor’s office, and all would be well and good.
Unfortunately, the first time his semen was tested, it came back that he still had some swimmers so we had to wait a little while and do it all over again; stopping at the restaurant, him going off on his own, etc.
[I believe she had told me they had to do this three times, though I could be wrong, I was laughing too hard while she was telling the story, imagining the whole scene.]
One of the times we went, we ran into some folks from church, chatted with them, and my husband excused himself. I was dying because I knew what he was going to do, but these people had no idea! Plus, here he was driving away, leaving us alone at the restaurant.
It was hilarious.
I texted my doctor while writing this blog post [funny story... I have actually become friends with his wife and him outside of the whole doctor/patient thing. Love living in a small town, it's great!]
Anyway, I texted him and asked if he had any good vasectomy stories. I thought this one was pretty cool. Sort of MacGyver-esque:
While I was in the Navy, I was doing a vasectomy. My cautery gave out [the tool used to burn the ends of the vas tubes... I hope I'm getting that right].
Some of the sailors were walking by the room on their way to smoke. I stuck my head out and asked them for a lighter… heated the instruments up and branded those vas tubes shut!
Some sort of Musak-type radio plays throughout the entire office, the songs played at random. He also mentioned this:
The best stories involve the music that plays overhead during a vasectomy though. Two of my favorites: The Gambler: “You gotta know when to hold ‘em…” and Desperado.
True story: During Clint’s vasectomy, not even a minute after first slice, the song Cuts Like a Knife came on.
Do you have any vasectomy stories to share? Please do! I know Clint will never forget the fact one of his tubes was so stubborn it wouldn’t come out, which caused our doctor’s hand to cramp up in the middle of it. Clint about passed out from getting his balls squeezed so hard.
I felt a little bad for him in that moment.
[Just a little.]
