Family: Complete

Last week I went under the knife to officially close the book on Jen and my reproductive years. In many ways, this was viewed by us as a celebration. It's a great feeling knowing your family is complete, and in our case, fertility was more of a journey than we could have ever anticipated. After six years, a lot of pregnancies, and three incredible boys, we are out of the game!

I was extremely nervous about my vasectomy. I'd guess much more so than the average male. It's not that I thought anything was going to go wrong, or that it would be more pain than I could handle... something about it just hit me at a visceral level. Maybe something to do with manhood and flipping your fertility to the "off" position... I'm not sure, and don't plan on spending money in therapy to figure out why. The night before the procedure, I was very close to backing out. I refused to watch the standard "so you're having a vasectomy" video at the doctor's office. I struggled emotionally with the entire event.

So, I needed something to keep my mind occupied during the day. That something ended up being Twitter. I tweeted nonstop during both the lead-up and actual procedure. I was so nervous that I wasn't really talking to Jen as we sat in the waiting room. But I was tweeting. For my 20 minute waiting room wait, Jen and I were sitting next to each other, and I was tweeting on my iphone, and she was reading my updates on hers. But we weren't speaking.

As I lied on the table, the doctor said "so are you playing a video game or what?" I explained to her that I was tweeting. "YOU'RE WHAT!?!" Was her reply. Apparently patients don't typically live-tweet their vasectomies. As the procedure went on, she would say things, and then say "don't tweet that". The answer was usually "too late".

For the record, vasectomies themselves aren't that big of a deal, and Dr. Paula Rookis did a fantastic job and was an absolute pro. If you are looking to get yourself fixed, and are in the Birmingham area, she gets my recommendation.

This blog has been a celebration of our family, and this event was certainly a milestone worth recording. Here's a feed of the day's tweets.