V is for...

Really, it's time I plowed on through and finished this alphabet thing, don't you think?

V is for....vasectomy

Marc and I decided early on, like most people in love and starting out their life together, that we wanted two kids, a boy and a girl, and we wanted them two years apart. And then we got exactly that. Two years and three days after our daughter was born, our son was born and it was time to go back on birth control.

We knew we didn't want any more kids and I didn't tolerate birth control pills well and the IUD I had had previously caused me to be in severe pain for the first day or two of my periods and those were basically the only two options for birth control available at the time besides condoms, which we had used between pregnancies, or a diaphragm, neither one of which we were thrilled about using. Sterilization or abstinence was the only sure way to avoid pregnancy and I don't know about y'all but abstinence was not an option.

Sterilization for women was serious business. Back then it was major surgery with hospitalization and anesthesia to get your tubes tied. Now, with the advances in medical technology, it's a much simpler out-patient procedure and there are several choices. You can get them cut, pinched, or plugged.

For us, hospitalization was out of the question and since vasectomy was the only available simple inexpensive out-patient procedure at the time and Marc's sense of manhood and virility was not centered on his ability to deliver sperm whether he wanted more kids or not, he made the appointment.

A bit of topical anesthesia, a little cut, a little snip, a little stitch and we were out of there in less than an hour.

Vasectomies were not that common back then. Just about all of our male friends were horrified at the very thought of 'cutting off their manhood'. Ironically, these same men had no problem with their wives undergoing major surgery to 'cut off their womanhood'. Just one of the many double standards women faced back then.

I don't know how men in general feel about vasectomy these days. Now that we have entered our 60s, the topic of avoiding unwanted pregnancy doesn't ever seem to come up. I would hope though that any man who is certain he does not want to be a father, takes the matter into his own hands and gets himself sterilized instead of expecting his female partners to be responsible for avoiding pregnancy.

All I can say is, Marc's vasectomy was the best thing to happen to our sex life and I thank him for it.