As of 1:30 this afternoon, I will no longer be able to do my part in creating a child.
After that time, and for the next eighteen-to-thirty-six hours, I can be found on the couch, ice pack on my crotch, my testicles recovering from an invasive surgery that will render my vas deferens useless, likely for the rest of my life.
“But a vasectomy is reversible!”
Sure.
And that was one of the first questions I asked my doctor, too. But, as it turns out, that’s a bit of a myth. Yes, a vasectomy is reversible. But not as easily as we’re often led to believe.
The reality is that, after 1:30 this afternoon, I will be henceforth unable to procreate, my balls purely decorative.
Which is all good. It’s something Emily and I have been discussing for years and something we both very much want.
Still, it’s strange knowing that I’m about to permanently alter my perfectly functioning biology by choice.
And none of that mentions the Big Questions that have arisen in the weeks leading up to today’s procedure.
As we read over the packet that I left my consultation with a few weeks ago, Emily and I had to ask and answer some very serious questions.
Were we absolutely sure we were done having kids?
What if something were to ever happen to Emily?
What if we split up someday and a theoretical new wife or partner wants theoretical new children?
What if something were to ever happen to one of both of our children? Would we want to start over?
Some of these Qs and As were more comical than others, of course, but discussing in very real terms the possible loss of your very real children is some very real shit.
And it’s some very real shit that no one really prepares you for before you have children.
When you have kids, you suddenly have to embrace a future that exists without you in it.
You start considering life insurance and writing a will. You discuss plans with your partner as to what they should do in the event of your demise, timely or otherwise (“Mourn me daily and forever. Never find love again. Thanks in advance.”)
You do your best to arm your children with the knowledge that their father loved them very, very much. Because beyond all of the physical artifacts and inheritances we may leave behind, that’s really the only thing that matters.
And even though I’d like to think I’ll be around a while, it’s impossible to say.
Considering my own mortality is perfectly normal, especially as I near forty, equidistant to sixty as I am to twenty.
However thinking about their mortality is something I am, three-and-a-half years in, still wholly unprepared for.
Much of it no doubt has to do with the terror of losing a child.
But something else that hangs over this entire process is the idea that this is it.
This is our family. Full stop.
Now that our daughter, the long-planned second child, has arrived, the framework of the story of our family is written.
There are no more variables to be defined, no more ‘what ifs’ to be answered. No more boys’ names or girls’ names to be considered. For as long as we live, we will be us as we are right now.
Of course, we’ll evolve over time.
Our kids will grow and our relationships with them (as well as with each other) will change. We’ll learn as much from them as they do from us. Maybe someday we’ll adopt a troubled young high school football player who will help us realize more about ourselves than we ever thought possible. Wait. Nevermind. That was Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. Anyway.
But the blueprint of who we are will always be as follows:
Mom, dad, son, daughter.
This is likely the last time I’ll ever have a three-month-old. When she takes her first steps in a few months, it’ll be the last first steps a child of mine ever takes. When she babbles her first words, both of our children’s first words will be forever etched in stone. In two or three years, her first day of preschool will be our final first day.
Whatever she does first will also always be the last.
And knowing all of that in advance is extraordinarily strange and preemptively very, very sad.
Alas, that’s more than I’ve ever wanted to write about my nuts. Which says nothing of how much you, dear reader, have ever wanted to read about my nuts.
Have a great week.
And make sure your kids know in no uncertain terms just how much you love them.