JohnR of Mind on Fire and cross-posted at Feminist Mormon Housewives has an encouraging, detailed, very cool, and very funny account of his recent vasectomy. I’ll do my best not to quote the funny or surreal parts (you should read those yourself) but I did want to flag the following paragraph

So, you may ask, why am I choosing to render my testicles useless? (At least as gonads–thankfully, they will continue to be fully functioning members of my endocrine system.) Mainly, it’s because we’re cheap. For the cost of one month of pills for Jana or two Costco megapacks of condoms we don’t have to pay for birth control ever again. (Well, if we were really chintzy, we could just stop having vaginal intercourse altogether. We’re not that cheap.)

There are other reasons. We already have two wonderful, precocious, beautiful, and according to the Guardian, extremely expensive teenage children. ... I’m just kidding, of course. Our kids are priceless. And we’re satisfied with them.

Read the quote in context here.

It’s cool that he qualified “render my testicles useless” with “they will continue to be fully functioning members of my endocrine system.” Because that speaks to a frequent but completely unfounded concern men have about the procedure. It’s cool too that he detailed the breakdown in costs — compared to all other forms of contraception it’s not only extremely** effective dead cheap.

I also think it’s funny that he and his partner considered the costs and benefits of discontinuing sexual intercourse.

And I really appreciate his point that he and his partner were satisfied with the children they had and that they had no further need of reproduction.

All in all a cool post. So check it out.

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One last point. I didn’t quote the bits about his doctor or the circumstances of his procedure because they’re the funniest parts.

But.

The physician, a friend JohnR identifies as a dean of a medical school, was certainly qualified. It’s a simple procedure after all, one that an intern performed ably the first time I got one at age 21. But a better choice might have been whichever local physician has the most, and most recent, practice performing them. It not only might be less expensive, but chances are that a doctor who makes vasectomies a regular part of his practice is going to have a quieter examining room and less intrusive support staff. Sure, it might not have been as amusing a story (I never got to yell “Come in! This is where the party is!” after the umpteenth interruption) but it almost certainly would have been a more comfortable experience.

Case in point: When my partner and I were ready to have children (20 some years after my vasectomy) we sought out the best qualified, most experienced urologist in the area to do my reversal. Several years later, after our planned, wanted, second, and last child was born, I did not go back to my urologist. Even though I liked him, and even though he was obviously qualified to undo with a couple of quick snips the intricate microsurgery he’d performed earlier I went instead to a local doctor who has an entire clinic just for doing vasectomies. Because, again, even though he wasn’t a med-school dean or ace surgeon he wasn’t just cheaper his clinic was set up for it, he knew what he was doing, and so did his staff.

Something to think about if you’ve got a mind to follow JohnR’s and my example.

[** But like anything else not one-hundred point zero, zero, zero, zero percent. Sometimes they really don’t work. But once sterility is confirmed it’s as close to a closed deal as you get. —fl]