This morning my husband had a vasectomy.
He’s recovering fine, in fact, the procedure was easier than a trip to the dentist he told me. He will have a few days to recover (no lifting, some soreness is to be expected of course), but it seems to have gone well.
We are happy with the decision, it was made together, we felt it was time, we weighed out all birth control options and this clearly won. Still, the entire thing is leaving me with a lot of feelings, even though as he walked into the appointment it was rather routine, unceremonious and I felt calm.
This means the end of a chapter. We have consciously decided not to expand our family. Getting pregnant was something we really wanted, something that didn’t come easily the first time. It was a privilege that makes the process of choosing to ensure it doesn’t happen again almost seem counter-intuitive. This doesn’t change that I am happy with the decision, it just means I recognize it wasn’t an easy one.
The fact is, this decision was made over 2 years ago. We had the vasectomy referral for many months (he got one after my daughter was a year, but we held on to it to be sure). We already had the conversation about him making an appointment. Maybe when our daughter turned 2, we thought. Soon, but let’s be sure.
But then, life has it’s way of changing your path, setting a new course. We sat in the oncologist’s office after Andy’s surgery for testicular cancer and we were told that the surgery wasn’t enough, that the disease had spread to his lungs and chemotherapy would have to start almost right away.
The oncologist asked us if we had children. How old they were, and whether or not we though we would be having more. We were told that chemotherapy might kill our chances of conceiving naturally and if we wanted to have more children we should bank his sperm quickly, before chemo.
We sat in that office, something out of our control steering us into an immediate decision, and I began to feel like the decision had been made. And in that office, at that moment, I cried.
I soon realized that I wasn’t crying because I wanted more children, I was crying because I wanted the choice to come naturally. In our own time. In the days that followed, feeling blessed with what we had already been given, we decided not to freeze any sperm. That our family was complete and that eventually, once out of the woods of cancer treatment and with a positive health diagnosis, we would revisit the vasectomy referral.
Fast forward over 2 years and here we are. Confident in our decision, I still have many feelings about it. As my children enter different stages I am thrilled to be on this parenting journey. But I will always miss being pregnant. Holding a newborn. Nursing my babies. Even though we aren’t going to have more children, it doesn’t mean I won’t always look back fondly on what has already passed.
So this chapter ends and we turn the page on something new. The four of us have a journey to continue and I am looking forward to what comes next. I am in a happy place, a new stage of parenting and marriage that excites me and that I welcome. But I can’t help but feel this moment is huge.
End of Chapter.
