"The Vas" and "The Toddler"

As I was being discharged from the hospital after Will was born, my OB asked if we were planning to have any more. After going through what we had just gone through, Drew and I both insisted that Lili and Will would be our only 2 children. She advised that if we changed our minds, she would like us to work with them (the doctors) to “plan” the 3rd. It would be considered a high-risk pregnancy, so we would regularly see the high-risk doctors at the clinic…have more appointments, ultrasounds and tests run…and potentially be placed on mandatory bedrest at a specific time to hopefully prevent me from “silently dilating”. At the time we really didn’t give her words any thought because of course we would not risk having a 3rd. Lili being born at 35 weeks wasn’t bad…me being on bedrest in the hospital for a month and Will being born at 31.4 weeks was awful. Not only does it place a whole lot of stress on me and the rest of the family, it is a huge risk for the baby. I can’t imagine what things would have been like if Will had been born any earlier and I consider us to have been extremely lucky in having two healthy babies despite their early arrivals.

Soon after we brought Will home, Drew and I had the much needed discussion concerning what we were going to do to ensure a 3rd baby would not make a surprise appearance. It seemed logical for Drew to get his “nuts cut” as he calls it…or “the vas” as our family physician (a male) calls it. Personally, I think he opted to take one for the team because he wants a break of his own. I got to spend a week in the hospital when Lili was 6 months old for my gall bladder removal and then a month in the hospital when I was pregnant with Will. Both times Drew was unexpectedly forced to manage parenthood on his own. I secretly think he’s longing for his own medical “break”. Yesterday Drew met with the doctor (we’ll call him Nut Doctor) for his “Nuts Cut Consult”. I guess he found Nut Doctor pretty amusing. Apparently the guy talked about the procedure in all of those lovely medical terms that they throw around, then looked at Drew and said, “So basically what I’m saying is that I’m going to cut here and here, but you’ll still have your nuts…because if I cut those off, you would be a woman and might start growing breasts.” Drew’s response? “Oh, o.k. So what about those guys who say they go golfing the next day? Can I do that?” And the doctor says, “Those guys are dumbasses and you can do that if you want to be one too”. What cracks me up about this practice is that almost all of the male doctors there are seriously whacked. When I first found out I was pregnant with Will, I thought I might try just seeing our family physician throughout the pregnancy, rather than going back to the OB (that later changed with my 3 ER visits during the 1st trimester). I was still pretty angry about not getting an epidural in time for Lili’s arrival and wanted to punch the doctor who had to be called 4 times because she didn’t believe I would go that fast. She walked into the OR as Lili came flying out. ANYWAY, so I go to my family physician (we’ll call him Dr. Vas) for my initial checkup to “confirm” what I already knew…which is that I was knocked up…and to talk about the next 9 months. Somewhere in that conversation Dr. Vas asks me if we are planning to have more than 2 or if “that’s it”. I told him that we didn’t know yet because if it was another girl, I was going to insist on a 3rd…whereas if it was a boy, I might be willing to forego the 3rd. At that point Dr. Vas thought it would be fun to tell me how he only had 2 kids as well and that he got “the vas”. Ummmm…o.k….good to know? He then proceeds to tell me the gory details of how he had his doctor friend do the procedure and how he botched it up and was in excrutiating pain for over a week because he didn’t want to tell his friend and potentially hurt his feelings. His advice? Don’t ever have a “friend” do “the vas”. Yeah, that won’t be a problem doctor…thanks for the tip...

O.k., somewhere I got off track and started rambling……….fast forward to the present…

Drew got home last night and was telling me all about the “fun” he’s going to have on the 30th of this month for his nut cutting and suddenly I was hit with this overwhelming feeling of doubt…like, should we really be doing this?!?!? It’s so…….”final”…..and “what if”…….??? Granted, the logical part of me says that I would never want to risk the health of another child with how my body responds to pregnancy…….but then the emotional part of me wonders if 2 is “enough”? I remember telling people for YEARS that I was going to have at least 5 kids…….and now we’re going to end that potential as quickly as it began? So of course I say this to Drew and he looks at me like I have 2 heads. What happened to our DECISION?!?!? I know, I know…………….not sure why I’m getting all CRAZY again…thinking we’re going to have 100 kids… Drew’s biggest concern is that he knows we both have realized that the infant stage really isn’t our “favorite”, so he can’t IMAGINE going through it all again. Of course we love our kids to pieces and they are so damn cute, but if we had had our way, we probably would have tried to deliver them at the age of 2……..we really love the stage that Lili has gotten into and to be able to hear her talk and laugh is the cutest thing! That’s when the adoption topic came up… We’ve had this discussion before, but now it seems to be more meaningful. My question was, what if in a few years I think we should have more…would he be willing to consider adopting? There are so many children out there who need homes... Poor guy…he looked like I had just punched him in the face…….to be hit with all of that in one evening was probably too much! He laughed and said, “Why don’t we just see how things go over the next few years and then we can talk about it?” Of course I couldn’t just leave it at that……”Well, you can’t get your nuts cut until I know if we can have a toddler someday!” His response? "You HAVE a toddler! Right now!" Oh yeah...well, there's always room for one more, right? =-)