When lovelywife and I met, we were in our mid-thirties with a fair bit of living behind us and three kids between us already messing up the lounge room and our social lives.

Once we decided to stake our claim on each other, we had to look at options.

A child of our own has been relegated to that store of “what ifs” that lurk in everybody’s mind. What IF we actually had got together that night twenty years ago at The Corner Hotel? Or what IF we’d met up sometime before her first kid and my first wife? Ah well… on to the point of the story.

The female body is designed to get pregnant and anything you do to it to stop it getting pregnant WILL have side-effects (even abstinence, as an insane husband roams the house, rubbing himself against the furniture and leering at the Norman Lindsay nudes on the lounge room wall while guests edge nervously towards the door).

No, abstinence is not an option.

We ran the full gamut of all lovelywife’s contraceptive choices - hormonal (weird moods, headaches, odd physical changes…the list goes on), some form of prophylaxis (condoms - crap; diaphragms - ineffective and extremely unsexy), IUDs (anaemia, anyone?) or surgical (risk of PERMANENT PMT??? Shoot us both!!).

OK, we’ve pretty much run out of options for her… so that only leaves…me…

Yup. Now we’re talking vasectomy. Righto, righto, guys, come out from behind the couch, will ya? Let’s get this out in the open…

Women are a lot more private about their bodies than we are and yet they’ve ALL had to lie on a gyno’s bench with their legs in the air while their doctor rummages about in their Holy of Holies taking pap smears and God knows what else. Can we just, I dunno, be MEN about it for a while?

It’s really not that big a deal, you make a couple of SMALL incisions in the scrotum (back from behind that couch now, come on!!!!) cut both vas tubes, seal them up, then one stitch in each incision. Hormone production and sex drive are absolutely unaffected, and hey presto, you’re shooting blanks! And the best bit is that you have a hormonally unregulated wife, who still OVULATES!!! Get in training, trust me, it’s BRILLIANT!!

So, after a lot of faffing about, I found a clinic, booked a week off work and breathed deeply.

The initial consultation, with lovelywife in tow, had its difficult moments. The doctor did that endless talking thing that doctors do, then he had to check out my gear and make sure nothing was out of place, or missing, or if he’d have to order in a winch for the biggest set he’d ever seen…

At this point, feel free to add “cringe” to the end of every sentence.

So, doc tells me to drop my strides and lay down on the exam table (cringe) with lovelywife in my field of vision (cringe). As he rummages around my sack (cringe) two thoughts absolutely will not leave my head: George Costanza’s horrified scream of “IT MOVED!!” and, as I steal a glance at lovelywife trying desperately not to collapse into fits of laughter, that scene from Life of Brian “What’s so funny about Biggus Dickus” (cringe).

Oh yeah, you’re not supposed to take aspirin for a week before the operation, cause it thins the blood. We’d been hitting the piss pretty hard lately, and it’s just a reflex action in the mornings to mix up a Berocca and Aspro first thing. Ooops. Doc not impressed and we get stern warnings about how it could increase the bruising (major cringe).

But… y’know… whatever… a scrotum’s not that nice to look at anyway, so what do I care if it’s purple??

Got through that okay and we get to The Big Day. NO food or drink, and especially no coffee, until after the procedure. Ever seen me with no caffeine in my blood stream? Picture Caligula on crack and double it.

Anyhow, I get to the clinic and lovelywife (despite her pleadings to be allowed to stay and heckle) was banished from the room.

The drugs they give you are a mixture of muscle relaxants and mild sedatives, which just space you out rather than knock you out. Some people stay alert all the way through, others get totally spaced. I’m very glad to say that I am in the second category.

Then, apparently, we heard the one thing you don’t want to hear the doctor say when you’re having a vasectomy.

“Oops”.

I didn’t know anything about it until I drifted back into semi-consciousness and overheard the nurse talking to lovelywife and using the words “unexpected occurrence”.

Despite my floaty, drug induced happiness I sat bolt upright and inspected my gear. No more blood than I would’ve expected, both of them still there and well-attached…. oh yeah and the bin full of bloody cloths I spied, not quite hidden under the bed…

Now, I was still off with various members of the Opiate Family Wizards, so the words “unexpected occurrence” had a similar ring to “collateral damage”. As lovelywife came in to hold my hand and coo at me, I was off: ranting about dead civilians, helicopter raids on apartment blocks, barbarians in the hall, Vercingetorix, massed cavalry, and fuck knows what else. Finally, she gave me some coffee and the Visigoths at the gate receded.

Eventually the doctor came back and told us what had happened. The first cut and seal went fine. On the second, however, while snipping the vas, he nicked….

An Artery.

I can only imagine what I would’ve felt if I’d been alert and seen blood shooting a foot into the air from my cods. I say again, I’m very glad I fall into the category of people who get totally spaced by the medication.

So after twenty minutes or so to regain lucidity and the use of my legs, off home we went.

Lovelywife is truly lovely, but the ministering angel thing is not really one of her strengths. However, she somehow managed to ease me onto the couch, bring me snacks and load fresh episodes of Deadwood into the DVD player without getting too bored. Also, she got through two whole days without making any crushed nuts jokes: now THAT really is true love!

It’s hard to describe what it feels like for the first few days after a vasectomy; every man alive has been kicked in the cods at least once in his life, and it’s sorta like that. A vaguely sick, painful feeling in the lower belly, and of course outright tenderness at the site of the snip. Meanwhile, I’m wearing two pairs of jocks and there’s wads and wads of dressing so I look like one of the Gladiators, which was nice I suppose.

Doc (and his insurance premiums) were a little nervous about the “unexpected occurrence” and so he came out that night for a free (!!) house call, just to check that everything was alright. Once again, there’s me, lying back watching my lovelywife dutifully avoiding eye contact as my gear is getting fondled by a man (cringe).

A week or so later my scrotum is a wonderful shade of purple, but largely painless, and life goes on.

Apparently sperm can live for quite a while, and there’re always a few thousand or so hanging around, so there’s a wait of about two months before you are totally in the clear.

After that, you have to produce a ..umm... sample… and toddle down, rather self-consciously, to the pathology lab to present your sample for testing.

Now, like every man you’ve ever met, I’ve been known play the odd game of couch hockey for one, it’s no big deal, right?

Well, on the evening in question, lovelywife and I had a dinner reservation and I was on the clock to get the cup to the lab while it was still (kind of) fresh. With this in mind, I dutifully took the laptop (containing some freshly-downloaded inspiration) into the bedroom, shut the door, and got down to business.

Lovelywife was sitting outside taking some air and occasionally banging on the window and yelling “Hurry Up! What’s taking so long??” and other helpful comments.

I soldiered on.

Any man who’s ever watched porn through to the money shot has had, however briefly or subconsciously, a little nagging doubt that he may not be quite as virile as he’d like, given the terrifying geysers so blithely sprayed around in your average stick movie. So, busily occupied as I was, still I’m looking at the cup, I’m calculating trajectories and all the while I’m thinking “Jeez, there’s no way I’m gonna fill that…”

The only other distraction I needed was a phone ringing, I thought. Then “PING!!” up comes a dialog box, over the top of my movie player, informing me that “Software Updates Are Ready To Download”.. NNNggggggHHHHHaaaaaarrrrgggg..

FINALLY, the job is done, the cup is sealed up, and we drive to the lab, lovelywife resolutely staring straight ahead and definitely not laughing, not even a little bit.

Cranky old trout at the lab tells me off for not bringing the sample in sooner, despite all my protestations that it’s a sterility test. That is, it’s a same day kind of thing as opposed to a fertility test, which involves standing in the lab beating off directly into the petrie dish.

“Is that all there is?” she grunts at me, by way of polite conversation. “When was the last time you saw some that wasn’t in one of these cups, you miserable old sow?” I said under my breath by way of witty riposte, as I stalked out.

Three days later, a phone call from my doctor and congratulatory confirmation that I’m shooting blanks and am still a functioning male. Cool. Go home to lovelywife and wait proudly to receive accolades for all my trials.

Lovelywife pats my hand and says “that’s nice dear, did you remember to get the washing powder on your way home?”

Sometimes it’s hard to be a man.

Ah well, we’ve no kids at home tonight, there’s beer in the fridge, the Saints are playing and lovelywife is sitting next to me wearing that old Victorian style nightie I like so much…

I haven’t got too much to complain about.

+ 1

+ 1