;)
Thursday
Apr232009
I Really Should Offer A Side Of Smelling Salts With These Posts.
Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 1:26AM
Sometime over the coming weeks, my husband is going to leave the house, grab a Starbucks (is TOTALLY a proper noun), head to a room where he'll take off his pants, lay on a table and let someone play with the junk under his trunk.
By "play", of course, I mean "numb, freeze, shave, slice, pull, cut, tuck, superglue and bandage up."
Since I'll be divorced within minutes of him reading that, this event probably has little bearing on me or my reproductive system, but in the event that he decides to take pity on me, I'm about to be sterilized by proxy.
When I was 24 and had just popped out kid #2, a nurse wheeled a cart into my delivery room and announced that she was there to give me my tubal. My heart skipped a beat. My eyes danced. I looked at The Donor and said, "puh-leeeeze?" and he said very mature, sensible things that started with how old I was, or more importantly, wasn't, and ended with something about hell and parkas and dead bodies if the need be. The nurse looked at us a bit sideways, then looked at her chart and then realized she'd come into the wrong room anyways.
Dream-crushing bitch.
I wanted to get my tubes tied. I wanted that second child, and two sounded perfect to me. I wanted to be 42 when my last child left the nest. I wanted to never, ever have another person claw their way out of my abdomen everever again. Turns out, I also wanted to have a little girl 5 years later, I just didn't know it at the time. Thank god for small favours and wise husbands.
When that little girl was getting ready to be born, I told my midwife that I was having a tubal after her delivery, and to not listen to a word that highly educated, smooth-talking hot guy said to her about it. She agreed and we started to schedule the surgery. And you know what that highly educated, smooth-talking jackass did? He got into the pregnant chick's head. He played my hormones against me. He got on bended knee and told me how unfair it was that I had to take all the pills and get all the iud's and carry and deliver all the kids and then have some invasive surgery. He told me how much he wanted to do this one thing for me, to thank me for his beautiful babies. He promised me he'd schedule a vasectomy before the baby was born.
She's three years and seven months old now.
And so I scheduled the damn thing for him.
I made one appointment for him that he, within 15 minutes of having it scheduled, weaseled his way out of. I made another appointment for him for the other day and he went, but he prefaced the whole thing by reminding me that in three weeks our insurance expires and if they don't deport our sorry American asses (I love you Canada. You look really great in those pants) it'll be at minimum four weeks before our health coverage is reinstated. (Yes, we go through this every year. Price you pay for free health care if you're American, yo.) He clarified that meant that it would be at least seven weeks before he'd be able to actually get in for the snippy-dip, and that's when I reminded him that WE STILL HAVE INSURANCE FOR THREE WEEKS and so maybe, just maybe, I know it's crazy, but maybe he could schedule the appointment for the procedure SOMETIME IN THE NEXT THREE WEEKS?
And so he went to his consultation and he scheduled his vasectomy within the next three weeks, just like I bullied him into doing, and then I cried. In a parking lot. Because I don't want it done. Didn't want it done. Something like that.
Do I want more kids? Yup, sure do. Do I want to have to buy a bigger car and move to a bigger house? Nope, sure don't. Do I want to be pregnant again? Not even to carry the seed of the Lord, thankyouverymuch. We decided, before we decided to go ahead with the vasectomy, that if time and situations and finances allowed, one day we would foster. Neither of us are done raising children, just making them. Fostering is the right choice for us, and I know that in the very deepest pit of my heart, but I still have to give away the one thing I've ever done well...making that man's children.
I stood outside in the rain with him under an awning beside a pizza joint and we shared a cigarette before we headed home after dinner. We talked about the impending surgery and I felt the lump well up in my throat. My eyes burned. I didn't want to cry, not in front of him, not over this, but I couldn't help it. I told him we had to hurry up and get this done before I changed my mind, and he asked me if I actually knew where that mind was because he was pretty sure I'd lost it. He said, "Really, you want another baby?" and I said that I just wasn't sure if I was ready for it to be over. That I liked having his babies, that I was good at having his babies, that it was the only thing I'd actually ever done with my life.
He said, "Well, it's not the only thing you've done" and then he snickered and then I elbowed him and then we giggled and then I realized that he was right, that we've been in the baby business for more than a decade and that we're finally able to stand under awnings and smoke cigarettes and talk to each other. We're able to leave the house without 18 bags, go to dinner with three kids and leave with no bodily fluids spewed on anyone's clothing. We're able to dictate the course of our relationship and our lives, and it's time to move on to becoming the next thing, to doing the next thing.
And the idea of that, of having to become something new, it scares the shit out of me. It won't be easy. But neither was becoming this.
And it was totally worth it.
See'em all on Flickr.
By "play", of course, I mean "numb, freeze, shave, slice, pull, cut, tuck, superglue and bandage up."
Since I'll be divorced within minutes of him reading that, this event probably has little bearing on me or my reproductive system, but in the event that he decides to take pity on me, I'm about to be sterilized by proxy.
When I was 24 and had just popped out kid #2, a nurse wheeled a cart into my delivery room and announced that she was there to give me my tubal. My heart skipped a beat. My eyes danced. I looked at The Donor and said, "puh-leeeeze?" and he said very mature, sensible things that started with how old I was, or more importantly, wasn't, and ended with something about hell and parkas and dead bodies if the need be. The nurse looked at us a bit sideways, then looked at her chart and then realized she'd come into the wrong room anyways.
Dream-crushing bitch.
I wanted to get my tubes tied. I wanted that second child, and two sounded perfect to me. I wanted to be 42 when my last child left the nest. I wanted to never, ever have another person claw their way out of my abdomen everever again. Turns out, I also wanted to have a little girl 5 years later, I just didn't know it at the time. Thank god for small favours and wise husbands.
When that little girl was getting ready to be born, I told my midwife that I was having a tubal after her delivery, and to not listen to a word that highly educated, smooth-talking hot guy said to her about it. She agreed and we started to schedule the surgery. And you know what that highly educated, smooth-talking jackass did? He got into the pregnant chick's head. He played my hormones against me. He got on bended knee and told me how unfair it was that I had to take all the pills and get all the iud's and carry and deliver all the kids and then have some invasive surgery. He told me how much he wanted to do this one thing for me, to thank me for his beautiful babies. He promised me he'd schedule a vasectomy before the baby was born.
She's three years and seven months old now.
And so I scheduled the damn thing for him.
I made one appointment for him that he, within 15 minutes of having it scheduled, weaseled his way out of. I made another appointment for him for the other day and he went, but he prefaced the whole thing by reminding me that in three weeks our insurance expires and if they don't deport our sorry American asses (I love you Canada. You look really great in those pants) it'll be at minimum four weeks before our health coverage is reinstated. (Yes, we go through this every year. Price you pay for free health care if you're American, yo.) He clarified that meant that it would be at least seven weeks before he'd be able to actually get in for the snippy-dip, and that's when I reminded him that WE STILL HAVE INSURANCE FOR THREE WEEKS and so maybe, just maybe, I know it's crazy, but maybe he could schedule the appointment for the procedure SOMETIME IN THE NEXT THREE WEEKS?
And so he went to his consultation and he scheduled his vasectomy within the next three weeks, just like I bullied him into doing, and then I cried. In a parking lot. Because I don't want it done. Didn't want it done. Something like that.
Do I want more kids? Yup, sure do. Do I want to have to buy a bigger car and move to a bigger house? Nope, sure don't. Do I want to be pregnant again? Not even to carry the seed of the Lord, thankyouverymuch. We decided, before we decided to go ahead with the vasectomy, that if time and situations and finances allowed, one day we would foster. Neither of us are done raising children, just making them. Fostering is the right choice for us, and I know that in the very deepest pit of my heart, but I still have to give away the one thing I've ever done well...making that man's children.
I stood outside in the rain with him under an awning beside a pizza joint and we shared a cigarette before we headed home after dinner. We talked about the impending surgery and I felt the lump well up in my throat. My eyes burned. I didn't want to cry, not in front of him, not over this, but I couldn't help it. I told him we had to hurry up and get this done before I changed my mind, and he asked me if I actually knew where that mind was because he was pretty sure I'd lost it. He said, "Really, you want another baby?" and I said that I just wasn't sure if I was ready for it to be over. That I liked having his babies, that I was good at having his babies, that it was the only thing I'd actually ever done with my life.
He said, "Well, it's not the only thing you've done" and then he snickered and then I elbowed him and then we giggled and then I realized that he was right, that we've been in the baby business for more than a decade and that we're finally able to stand under awnings and smoke cigarettes and talk to each other. We're able to leave the house without 18 bags, go to dinner with three kids and leave with no bodily fluids spewed on anyone's clothing. We're able to dictate the course of our relationship and our lives, and it's time to move on to becoming the next thing, to doing the next thing.
And the idea of that, of having to become something new, it scares the shit out of me. It won't be easy. But neither was becoming this.
And it was totally worth it.
See'em all on Flickr.
Reader Comments (54)
Well, it is generous of him to detach his boys so you don't have to bare the burden of taking hormones for the next 50 years or having a vasect....Oh you thought I would mention rubbers next on that ist didn't you? Sorry we don't do that sort of thing.
And, I bet it is nice having kids that are growing/grown up now. I always tell Lilly that I can't wait until my boy can sit and have a conversation with me, a real one.
Way to go Mr Lady's Mr Man!
Damn you. Now I am thinking about reversal again...
No am not. Yes I am.
Hang on, Boo is eating a feather duster...
Best damn decision of our lives.
Hey. I know this wasn't really the topic of your post...but foster kids need you. There are so many kids out there who need a stable home with people who think raising children is a privilege.
Sounds like you will make great foster parents. Take it from a former foster child, they need you.
The reason you don't want to have the Lord's baby is because you're afraid it will grow up and become a zombie, isn't it?
I am *this* close to scheduling Jared's vasectomy for him - except that it pisses me off that I have to because he's a grown damn man. And I was going to be all "awww, me too honey!" - except - no.
I am so totally 150% done making or having new babies.
But here's a hug from me to you anyway. :-)
Hey lady...I'm right there with ya. We've not yet scheduled anything (partly because we're uninsured right now) but two's a good number for us. We went out by ourselves last week and although we were only gone a couple of hours, it was a healthy, happy-to-not-have-kids-with-us couple of hours and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love my kids, and was happy to see them when we picked them up, but it was nice to just be us again.
However, I am a liiiiitle bit (REALLY) sad that I'll never be pregnant again. So...*hugs*
It like not wanting something until someone tell you that you can't have it.
He is a braver man than many.
And you a braver woman than many for truly wanting to foster.
Brava, brava!
I had the same feelings before Hubby had his vasectomy. It took five years for us to finally get it done. What gave us the courage to do it was seeing my sister-in-law with her newborn because I loved that baby, but I knew I didn't want to go through that again.
'
It was really liberating after it was done, and neither of us have ever regretted it.
Just eat lots of food and concentrate on having food babies instead.
Awww...that is so sweet. My hubs told me he would do the surgery too after having two horible pregnancies as well as having to have surgery myself WHILE pregs with the second...he said it was the least he could do...I was so filled with joy that he would do that...
My baby is 9...I took myself off the pill two years ago cause it was really f*n me up...he HAS to wear a raincoat...I'm pissed...and we are in couples counseling...I wonder if he had actually followed through with it...if it would be differenent now...
I am walking down this very same path. Thanks for a great post.
"dream crushing bitch" - I love it!
Congrats on making the decision about Fostering - there are so many kids out there that deserve better.
Great post!
After my second I had the snip, clip and freeze done. Worked out best for me to go under the knife. I sometimes wonder if we should have tried for #3, but the two we have are more than a handful. I've thought too that fostering would be what we can do once our nest is cleared out.
Careful, that snip does not always work.
My neighbor had that done after his fourth kid.
His wife ended up pregnant with the fith one even though "every thing" looked fine on the follow up visit.
On the flip side I had my tubes tied when my son was diagnosed with autism eleven years ago. My obgyn tried talking me out of it because he felt I might change my mind. He told me that my son "would out grow autism".
Yeshaaaa RIGHT.
I wish I could of have had more kids but my son takes up all of our time and energy. There would have been nothing left to give another child; let alone the chance of a second child having autism too.
Ooo boy can I relate to that. I want more but I don't want more. I love my life as it is and I don't want all the hassles but hello yummy squishy babies...
Here's my advice for you. Buy a couple bags of frozen peas. The patient will thank you.
Oh, I am so done having kids and wish with all my heart that my pussy-ass husband would get a vasectomy, but I don't think it's going to happen. It'll be IUD all the way around here.
My wife & I used to say the same thing. We wouldn't have minded another kid, just not her carrying one.
Then our eldest daughter, estranged from us for a couple years, came back. With a baby. (fortunately, she did get married before she had him)
So at the ripe old ages of 40 (me) and 43 (her), we became grandparents.
Now if our daughter would just bring the l'il squirt by more often...
ok, so here i am with two kids and i signed up for the mirena minutes before princess ruffle butt could make her way into the world. i've had 2 kids in less than 2 years and i would be bat shit crazy to have another one anytime in the next 5 years. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean i didn't cry like a little girl when i got into my car after having it inserted. all it took was seeing my daughter and realizing there'd be no more babies for a very VERY long time, and that by then i may not want to have anymore. i keep telling myself it's in our family's best interest financially and BY GOD, it ought to help keep our sanity at an acceptable level for 5 years... hopefully... pleeeeease tell me it will. i sympathize with you, girlfriend. when the husband said he wanted to get the big V i about crapped my pants, because THAT kind of permanent i'm not quite ready for... yet.
My man did it and although my ovaries sometimes hurt (both when I see a cute baby and when it's that time of the month, heh,) it was for the best. I'm 40 now and seeing as my last baby was 11 pounds I don't think my aging body could handle another giant child being pushed through my nether regions. Nor do I want to be 60 when he/she leaves the nest.
Love that picture. Good luck to the Donor. ;)
I cried before he did it. Seriously, when all else fails, I make good babies. So I cried. But: liberating. It was liberating. (And I keep making him go back in to have his "samples" tested because I'm still nervous. And it embarrasses the hell out of him. Priceless.)
Um. I had this really insightful comment but I was reading the other comments and got stuck at "At least she got MARRIED before she had him!" and now I am all mad at men in general and wouls happily come perform the V. myself, on your husban or whomever had a penis handy, but then I remembered that you LIKE his penins so....I guess I will go eat some cake and remember that it isn't always about me. Love you. And I get you.
Kori, when Diamond Dave is talking about his little baby girl, I think he can be okay with wanting her to get married before someone knocks her up.
If anyone so much as looks at my 3of3 before a honeymoon is scheduled, I'll kill that motherfucker. ;)
Love you, too.
you're such a good mama. foster kids would love you, too...sounds like you have even more love to give...
I thought I was okay with being done. With not having diaper bags, with having portable kids that don't scream (okay, not much) and fall asleep or spit up in the grocery store. With no more diapers.
And then last night R climbed up in her Daddy's lap and he said something about how she was getting too big to fit in his lap and WHAMMO - it all came back.
But I think I have to be okay with this. Medical, financial, spatial reasons - all the good stuff.
But there may always be a little niggle.
Here's to the next wonderful thing.
Here I thought your husband was brave for just having married you, now he goes and makes ALL us guys look bad by throwing this down. Once again, Donor, hats off to you.
Also, you guys can borrow our daughter ANY time you want. Aline and I could use a break and I think it would cost, like, $45.00, to ship her up there FedEx.
I have officially stepped over that line in the sand. I am done as done can be. I can't, won't even think about it.
That and as Mr.T says, should I wind up pregnant there would be both a lawsuit with a urologist and a negative population. However, THAT would work.
Hey Mr. Lady!
This is so awesome. It seems like you've cried more than you should've these past coupla weeks so here's an eHug. (((hug)))
PS: Can I be the one that plays with the junk? No? :P
21 days until I have my 3rd and last child... and I already signed the paperwork to have a tubal during delivery (if I have a c-section... otherwise I'll have it done at 6 weeks post-op.) When signing the paperwork the nurses told me that I can rip it up at any time...
What? Why in the HELL would I do that?
A wise friend told me that when you know it's your last... you JUST know.
OH do I bleeping know...
I loved this - you guys sound perfect together and I have no doubt you're gonna love the next stage of your lives...
This was beautiful. But I can't get over the frozen balls part.
What a perfectly matched set you are.
gah! you made me laugh and cry and giggle. okay, i didn't cry. but my eyes got all misty. ish. esque.
At least I never chopped my loving husband's knackers off!
Very well-said. I want Jon to get the big V, and even though I love children and always thought we would have more, I realize it just isn't going to happen. Genetics suck. Maybe I will write about this, too. Congrats on making Blogher blog of the week. They made a good choice.
And glad you got back in Canada, safe and sound and didn't end up in Guantanomo. Pretty sure they make you wear teal shoes there.
T.
Hell yes Mr. Lady. Utterly and life-savingly worth it. The good stuff ain't ever easy.
And I don't know you at all but I think I'm seeing something in your words over on this here blog over the time that I've been reading you that gives me damn good reason to believe that even though you're scared shitless about the becoming something new stuff that you're gonna kick some serious ass at that too.
'Cause that's how you roll in your life right? You are one kick ass chick.
And that fostering? Wow. Melts my heart. Awesome.
P.S. My dude needs to get this shit done too like YESTERDAY!! I am 41!!! And I get pregnant when he looks at me! PLEASE DON'T LOOK AT ME!!
Y'all might like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDW6ivmihME&feature=PlayList&p=25E11CEE6D465E4C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=31
you're so pretty!!!!
:) love your blog.
... cracked me up, then made me tear up, then made me smile again.
ty for sharing your story with us.
♥
This one got to me, but mostly I laughed much. I never gave it a moment's thought when the hubby went to get snipped. The difference, I guess is that I never seriously considered having more children after we had such unusual circumstances surrounding my pregnancy and the birth of our son.
I think fostering is a great thing.
The Daver is getting a vasectomy too. I imagine it'll be sometime in the next 10 or so years (I just popped out our last one and he is LAZY) and when he does, I will be throwing him a party. A VASECTOMY party. I am shopping for it at the porn shops. I'm thinking penis balloons and favors.
Mature? Me.
NEVER.
Patrick had his V done when Claire was 3 weeks old. There was NO WAY IN FUCKING HELL we were gonna have kid #3.
No. Way. No. How.
When I had my tubes tied . . . well, when I was sitting on the gurney waiting to go into the OR to have my tubes tied, I had a moment of sadness as I thought about the closing of that door, symbolically speaking. I was 42, I think (plenty old) and had two lovely children (still do). But it still made me sad, and I cried for a minute. Thankfully, no one saw me.
Re: The Snip for Guys. My sources tell me he is entitled to a weekend on the couch with Comedy Central and bags of frozen peas. Send the kids away as they are prone to jumping on dads who lie on the couch watching Comedy Central. It's not their fault. It's what kids do. And now is not the time.
i bet it was agonizing being all final and everything. it's kind of like when preschool ended, i sighed about the loss of their little selves, but then i realized they can unbuckle themselves pretty easy now that their five and seven. one thing always gets replaced by something better. and look at it this way, you have three kids with the same guy (unless you've already appeared on the maury povich show) and happpily together. sometimes i wish i had three or four. but then my achey legs and the jelly under the table reminds me, it's all good. It's whatever God decides, i'm okay with it. bc i am a LOUSY decision maker. He knows it! and we just sort of forgot about the tube tying after my second c-section. darn it.
When my daughter was born (2nd and final child), I had a tubal scheduled. And then my husband decided that I'd already done enough, and I shouldn't have to have a surgery after just having a baby, and so he would have the vasectomy.
My sweet baby girl will be 8 in a couple of months. Eight.
You rock.
I'm sorry I can't say anything more intelligent than that, but 45 comments later, I have nothing original to say.
But you rock.
That last photo just melted me. You are gorgeous.
So, we've had the V-talk several times, and it's a weird thing because we spent over ten years trying and trying to get pregnant, it seems totally against our grain to get the snip. So for now, I just take the meds to control my zits...oh, and the occasional poke, 'cuz fate has that way of twisting on you just when you least expect. And there's no way now HOW (as Angie has put it) we're going to be parents of a newborn while we're in our mid-40s.
I had a really good friend who made a guys weekend out of it ... as in, they had their V's done, then stayed overnight at a ritzy hotel and drank the rest of the weekend out. He couldn't believe he told me that and neither could I!
As somebody who just had a vasectomy last week, I hadn't given much thought to how my wife may have felt. It sounds callous when I say it like that. I mean, we were both very much on board with me having one. But there is a certain degree of melancholy that comes with it.
I'm new around here. I really dig this post.
Wow, this sounds like the VERY SAME THING we`re going through. Except I`m past the making schedules for the man . . . he just won`t go. Despite his promises to do so. I`m more at the point of waiting til he`s asleep and going in myself. I read how to do a vasectomy once in a military medical manual (no clue why they need to do vasectomies in the military, but there you go, useful knowledge) and it really sounds quite simple.
Just to be sure though, I`ve been holding other people`s babies to see if something kicks in and it`s more like, "Holy cow, I do NOT want another baby." I totally wouldn`t mind if someone gave me a toddler or two more though, just don`t want to do the whole pregnancy, birth and then sleepless nights thing ever again.
Alright. Somehow we are living simultaneous lives...
My husband and I are going through this exact same thing right now. We have two beautiful, smart, funny, sometimes-total-jackasses, little boys and I'm now thinking I want to try for number 3. I keep hearing "what the hell are you thinking" from both in and outside of my head.
But I quit birth control anyway.
And forgot to tell my husband.
But he sent me an email this morning saying he wants another one too. So I guess we're doing it, but I still wonder if we're nuts.