The first thing the doctor said when he walked in was, "Where's you phone?"
I let him know that it was still in my jeans which were slung over a chair and he says, "Oh, you're going to want to go get that before we get started. You'll want a distraction from what I'm doing to you down here."
I trusted his judgment. He's done a lot more of these than me. Now I'm lying on the operating table with my phone in my hand sending texts to my wife as a doctor and a nurse are prepping the twins for surgery. Then it occurred to me that with access to a phone I could do live Tweets of the experience. That would be really funny if I used Twitter, which I don't. What I do have is blogger, so I give you Part 1 of The Vasectomy Monologs.
1:20PM - I'm glad they have this curtain down on my waist so that I can't see what they're doing. I don't want to have any idea what they're doing. My father-in-law said that he looked down during his and saw smoke rising from his nuts. Smoke?! Do they burn the ball tubes off? No. I don't want to know. Don't look down. Don't. Look. Down.
1:22PM - Might be funny to send a picture the the wife.
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| Medical professionals shouldn't drink Diet Coke. |
1:24PM - I hear the doctor say "The machine isn't heating up the way it is supposed to, so I didn't want to take a chance."
What? Why isn't the ball machine working? What are you doing instead? I don't want the Plan B version of this whole thing.
1:26PM - I have to admit that when I was all alone before the doctors came in I was smacked with sudden blast of sadness and regret. I know all the practical reasons not to have another kid, and they all make sense. We don't have the money, we don't have the space, and consequently we don't have the money for more space. We are getting a little bit older, and Mrs. Noisewater's last pregnancy was really hard. Desi Noisewater, our 4-month-old, was born with a missing kidney. Did we get off easy here? What might the next one have wrong? Plus these kids are a ton of work, we hardly sleep, we both work full time, and there is just no way in hell we could start over with another baby again.
These are all reasons that make perfect sense, and I know I'm doing what is best for my family right here. But we can't help what we feel in the moment, and those feelings were the following 2:
1. "But I want a little girl!" My sister had 3 boys, most of my close friends only have boys. There's something about that relationship between a dad and his daughter that I guess I'll just never know, like in all of the weddings I have been to (including my own) where a father walks his daughter down the aisle. Well, there is no turning back now. They say this procedure is reversible, but there is no way I'm doing this again. This is it. But it's sad and just feels kind of wrong to me. I can't imagine what a woman having an abortion must feel like because I'm mourning what could have maybe been, and they're mourning what actually would be if they just left the clinic and didn't go through with it. That has to be tough.
2. "Would if the zombie and/or Terminator apocalypse comes and I need to repopulate the earth?"
Both 1 and 2 are important to consider.
TO BE CONTINUED . . . Stay tuned for the next installment, my Seven Readers.
