You know that little statistic about the first-year reliability rate for vasectomies is 99% instead 100%? Fade to Numb, who had a vasectomy about three months ago, has an important public service announcement that’s strongly related to that.
In the meeting with the doctor at the time, as well as from the papers I brought home afterwards, I learned something interesting. Evidently, no more than half of the guys that get vasectomies actually go back into the lab at a later date to make sure their specimen is all clear. (“Specimen is all clear” could be translated as “all the little spermies are completely gone from the semen system.”)
And (surprise surprise) it can take many months and upwards of 20 ejaculations before they all get cleared out. So some of those people that have “miracle children” after vasectomies? I suspect some of them are less “miracle” and more “didn’t bother to follow up after an operation.”
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Long story short (or, rather, less long), I got a letter back from the doctor the next week. Sadly, it stated that I’ve still got some sperm swimming around in the system, and I need to take another specimen back to the lab in another three months, and until that time I need to make sure I use proper protection during sex.
Point being that vasectomies actually are extremely good for keeping new sperm cells out of semen. But you’re not sterile till the last of the old cells are out of your system.
For the record there’s a very, very small chance that his vasectomy really didn’t work and that sperm is somehow getting past the snips. If so then his follow-up check will detect that and he and his partner can decide what to do next. meanwhile, though, they’re not going to make assumptions about whether he is or isn’t still fertile.
Cool post.
