The Vasectomy Monologues: Part 3

My wife and I were married in September of 2001 and by February of 2002, she was pregnant with our first kid. It was planned, though, I promise. We both wanted to have children and it made the most sense for us to have them as soon as possible. Since we had only dated for about 3 weeks, ultimately we didn't have much time to really get to know each other before the mood swings and nausea started. Over the last six years whenever we think about the first chapter of our marriage, we seem to drift toward the same question: Should we have waited to start our family until after we'd had a chance to get to know each other?

I think we did things the best way we could have. But every time I think about our future, I think ahead to the day when our children will be grown-up and on their own. Betsy and I will be able to go on cruises and vacations as a couple that we never had a chance to do when we were in our early 20's. Our kids will be adults and we'll still be young enough to enjoy each other's company... hopefully.

So whenever we have another child, the "18 year" stopwatch starts all over again. Right now, we'll both be almost 50 when Season is old enough to go to college or get married or move out or something. If things work out the way I'm planning, I'll have the summers off to spend with my wife and we can hang out with our kids and their families.

Betsy also has pretty rough pregnancies. They're not really DANGEROUS pregnancies... they're just really hard on her. When a pregnancy is hard on a wife and mother, it also makes for very trying times for the husband and children. We also recently moved into the house we'd like to live in for the next 50 or so years... and it only has 3 bedrooms with the possibility of adding a fourth at some point. So with three children, it works out pretty well. They can each have their own room when they hit their teenage years.

Betsy stays at home and takes care of the house and children and I work for the government. I get the occasional "cost of living adjustment" on my paycheck, but we are not in a position to be able to afford a large family. We are in the unfortunate situation to need to decide whether we should have more children and have yearly vacations in our backyard in a tent, or stop having kids and be able to afford an annual road trip or Disneyland adventure. For some, the decision would be easy (and different depending on who you are), but for us it's been tough.

There are other reasons we've decided to stop having children, but these are the least intrusive and more obvious ones.

Three days ago I was standing in my kitchen looking out the window at my two boys playing on the rope swing hanging from our apple tree in the backyard. My wife had just put Season to sleep in the crib and she walked up behind me and we both watched our kids playing. I told her how happy I am to have such a wonderful family and how blessed we've been to have such healthy and handsome children. She agreed and expressed her satisfaction with how well we've done with our life and with our family. I said something about how much fun it's going to be when Season is old enough to play outside with our boys. We both laughed at the mental image of watching Season learning to walk and stumbling around in the backyard with her two big brothers. Betsy said something about the size of our yard and how relieving it is to have so much space for our kids to play. Then I asked if she could picture any more kids playing in the backyard. She smiled and started walking into the bedroom to check on Season when she said, "Yeah... I could have one more."

This shocked me quite a bit. I followed her in to the bedroom and we started having a complicated conversation that still happens to be going on... on and off. All of the same reasons exist for wanting to be done, but we've been able to dismiss most of them by using fairly simple logic.

Our three kids are about 2 1/2 years apart each. So even though it's tempting to get my vasectomy now, we've been wondering if it makes more sense to wait until the time we'd normally be wanting to get pregnant again (in about 2 1/2 years) and then see how we feel. The problem with that rationalization is we can both picture ourselves wanting another baby... and another baby... and another baby. We've been wondering if we should use logic and common sense to make a decision like this or if we should use our gut/heart/spiritual prompting.

Since this conversation started three days ago, Betsy is still saying she feels like we're done. I also feel like we're done, but it scares me to think that I'm deciding NOW (with my vasectomy) to have the future decision taken away. I want to be able to decide in three years if I want another baby. I don't feel like I should have to make the decision now.

I called the Doctor and canceled my vasectomy. I was wondering if I was going to be able to type this blog post in such a way where I didn't seem like too much of a wuss. For the record, I'm not scared of the doctor messing with my balls and sticking a huge needle into my scrotum. I'm cool with that. I'm just not ready for the side-effects of the doctor messing with my balls.

Stay tuned for Part 4... coming in 2 1/2 years.