Vanessa’s story: A positive experience

Hi! My husband recently underwent a vasectomy, and we had such a positive experience, we wanted to share it with your website. Hope it’s useful!

I’m writing this for all you worried guys and ladies out there – we were there, too. But trust me, life after a vasectomy is a beautiful thing. Of course, having a bad surgical experience or accident is everyone’s (man’s or woman’s) worst nightmare – we did our best to minimize our risk by going to a respected urologist who does the NSV (No-Scalpel Vasectomy) every day and following his instructions to the letter, and we had a very good experience. Having a bad emotional experience, though, is just as awful – we got around that by dealing with all of our issues before the surgery, making the decision together, and carefully researching all of our choices before we decided.

Here’s our story

My guy and I have both dreaded having children all our lives, but never did anything about it because we expected we’d end up with people who did want to have children – finding each other was like finding an oasis in the desert. We tried several other forms of birth control, but they didn’t jive with my health: I’m allergic to both latex and spermicide – I would get a UTI and a yeast infection Every Single Time. It was so awful, I can’t even begin to describe it. Also, I have no physical tolerance for the pill, the patch, or an IUD. We tried non-spermicidal condoms (which let me get rid of the yeast infections, but I was still dealing with a constant UTI) and withdrawal, but, really, at that point, why bother?

After a pregnancy scare, we made the choice to have one of us sterilized. We researched both procedures and realized that it was much less risky for him to have a vasectomy, so we made the appointment. When we went to the urologist’s office, he seemed “normal” and kind. He asked, “Are you sure you don’t want children?” We said, “Yes.” He said, “Fine. See you in a week.” 🙂

Word to the wise: Make sure your surgeon does vasectomies for a living. More skill = fewer complications. We also briefly considered sperm banking but decided we were so completely against wanting or having children, we didn’t even want the option.

I expected my sweetie would have fears before the procedure, but he was a real tough-guy about the whole thing. Then, the night before the Big Day, he read some personal accounts that scared the living daylights out of him, and he told me he was reconsidering. We talked for a while, and he came to the conclusion that the risk of complications is there, but minimal, and I reassured him that I loved him, supported him, and was grateful that he was doing this for us and that if he backed out even at the last minute, that would be fine, and we’d find another way.

The vasectomy

Well, he didn’t back out. The next day, he had the surgery – he was in and out in 20 minutes. He felt a little light-headed afterward (normal vaso-vagal response), so I drove him home. We got him camped out on the couch with some movies, put him on extra-strength Tylenol, and made sure he had some frozen corn for his groin (frozen vegetables like peas or corn make a more malleable, softer, and gentler ice pack than real ice does). He had soreness and tenderness, but no serious pain.

After the surgery

Three days later, we took the ol’hot-rod for a tentative test drive, and everything worked just fine. He was apprehensive at first – he wondered if there would be pain or if anything weird would happen, but it was all good.

Within a week, all of the soreness was gone – in part because he took it very easy and wore athletic support so as not to stress the area – and he was back; oh, WOW, was he back! We had to do 25 ejaculations before we sent a sample in to test, but, hey, that’s, what, two, three weeks? After we got the all-clear from the surgeon (“Go have a good time,” the receptionist said!), we tried out the rest. We were both thrilled at the increased sensation, both from not having to use a condom and not having a single fear about unwanted pregnancy.

And in the six months since, we’ve had more fun, in more places than is fit to print. No problems, no regrets. Our experience was all good.

Submitted by Vanessa