When I hear women or couples discuss getting a vasectomy, I feel a sense of panic, my pulse blares in my ears and head like a siren, I feel light-headed and I want to scream DON'T DO IT!!!! This is only an initial reaction of course and substantiated with my own fears, guilt, regret and frustration. I know that some people feel that a vasectomy is the best thing they ever did and I think that if you have absolutely no question, it probably is right for you. But if you even have the slightest uneasiness about it you should cool your jets and reassess the options further down the road.
If someone would have asked me when we made the decision to get the vasectomy, "are you sure you never want to be pregnant again?" I probably still would have said, "yeah, I think so." It kills me to know that truth. But, had we been forced to wait a mere 3 months (actually 6 weeks when the crazy-lady-prego hormones start to normalize) I would have said no. Not a indecisive, I don't think so, but a loud and positive NO!
You see by 6 weeks, my 3rd degree tears, all four of them, had healed nicely. I no longer had the intense back, leg, thigh and hip pains of pregnancy or the maddening heartburn. I had bounced back faster than either of my other pregnancies and deliveries. I was in complete bliss over my new little prince charming. I was so happy, but the reality that he was my last ate at my heart.
After a vasectomy you are supposed to avoid unprotected sex until the doctor says no sperm is present. At 6 weeks I told my husband, we don't have to--it has been long enough...what guy is going to say no to not wearing a condom?
I was trying to get pregnant, a last ditch effort to cling to what we had thrown away. Unfortunately, it did not work and at the final semen analysis we did he had less that 1 million sperm. They tell you it takes up to 35 ejaculations before all of the live sperm are gone. At our last SA we were well into the upper 40's. It gave me hope that it was a failure.
For the next year, I continued to get my period and my dream of having another baby started to fade and I just accepted what we had done.
So my thoughts are this, make sure your are certain. Give you and your spouse a window of time where you diligently use birth control or a combination of birth control to see if you still feel like the children you have completes your family. If you are still not sure, WAIT! Condoms never killed anyone, aside from very severe latex allergies (okay I made that up) or used in a way unintended.
A short duration of inconvenience is so worth not having a lifetime of regret.
I do understand where you’re coming from here. Vasectomy should not be something that couples should rush into. Sure, they may not want to have children at the moment, but times and mindsets can change over time. They may find themselves wanting to have another one in the next few years. And although the procedure is primarily reversible, you can never be sure that it will have the same effects for everyone.
ReplyDeleteHarold Judelman