My Vasectomy Experience, Two Years Later
It’s been a little over two years since I got my vasectomy—I actually got it on Valentine’s Day in 2020. So romantic! By manner of celebrating, I’m going to be getting very personal for today’s post and will talk about my experience with the whole process. I’m in a few childfree groups and vasectomies are a common topic in that space. Occasionally I’ll see men who want to know more or are nervous about the whole idea. Sometimes, it’s women who want help convincing a partner to just get it done. So, today I want to talk about my own experience with the whole thing, start to finish, in the hopes that it will encourage others to just get out there and get this thing done. I’ll be going over my personal reasons, how I convinced the doctor to do it, what the procedure was like, and how recovery went!
Why am I Childfree?
So the obvious question is going to be why? Why don’t I want kids? This is the most common one. The short answer is that I’m childfree, and have been for several years now. I don’t want kids, at all, and will not be changing my mind. Even from a very young age—I can remember feeling this way as early as thirteen or so—I believed that if I ever had kids, I would only do so through adoption. I had no interest or desire to have a genetic clone of myself and whomever I wound up with, and that didn’t change at any point in the future. Even when I was in relationships with single mothers, that was more amiable toward that than I was to the idea of having kids that I’d contributed DNA to. That just didn’t appeal to me at all.
I don’t want to hurt any feelings, so I’m going to keep this part as short as I can. The reason I ultimately decided that I would never have kids at all, even through adoption, came when I was in my early twenties and was faced with the very real possibility of being the stepfather to a kid who had been conceived while this person and I were briefly broken up. I thought that I wanted to, but the entire idea of it stressed me out beyond belief. After we closed that door for good and I had a lot of time to think about it, I realized what I really wanted was this person, not the kid, and I viewed the child as an obstacle between myself and what I wanted, not a positive aspect of the future I could have had with her.
That isn’t at all a healthy way for a child to grow up—kids should be actively loved and cared about, not seen as an obstacle or something that’s tacked on to a life I otherwise enjoy. Having kids, for me, would be a massive mistake and I would undoubtedly regret it.
On top of all this, though, I just don’t want that life. There’s so much I want to do, so much I want to see. I like being able to spend my money on things that I want, and I like being able to focus on my video production and story writing. I like being able to travel all over the world. I like designing my dream home without worrying about a kid’s bedroom and play area being part of that. I like driving a car that doesn’t have a backseat. I like having nice things. So… kids aren’t part of the equation, and that decision is final. I made the decision to go and get a vasectomy.
Okay, but Why a Vasectomy?
All right, so why would I get a vasectomy? Why not just, you know, use protection that’s not so permanent? Birth control, condoms, things of that nature? Hell, if you really wanna go the surgery route, why not just have my partner get a tubal ligation? Why’s a vasectomy the route to go?
One of the key reasons I got a vasectomy is because I want a permanent and virtually guaranteed solution. I do not ever want kids. I don’t want the risk of kids. I don’t want them at all, so there’s no reason to take chances. If I know that I will never, ever want children, then why would I take that risk at all?
And the tubal ligation one… I wish I could say that I’ve never seen that. First of all, this is a decision I’ve made and there’s no reason to make someone else go through a whole surgery for it. Secondly, even if I were with someone who couldn’t have kids, I’d still want to get a vasectomy! You never know what will happen with a relationship, as I saw with the relationship I was in when I got my vasectomy, so it’s best to just have the surgery already done so I’m prepared. And, lastly (and most importantly), tubal ligation is far more invasive and far more challenging to get! Doctors are extremely touchy when it comes to self-sterilization in general, but they’re especially difficult when it comes to women requesting it. I’ve heard some horror stories from women struggling to get sterilized. The amount of sexism in the health industry, in general, is atrocious, but it is particularly rampant when it comes to women’s reproductive rights.
Which, I’m sure you’ve probably picked up on, by now.
So What Was the Process Like?
First of all, my vasectomy cost $20 total, with the health insurance that I had at the time. I only had to pay the co-pay, which I think with my current insurance is closer to forty or fifty dollars. Still not bad considering that my friend without health insurance had to pay upwards of $1000 for his at the same clinic. So price really wasn’t a problem for me; this isn’t something I needed to save for, and you may be surprised at how affordable yours is regardless of how terrible your insurance is. This should be one of the more affordable procedures that you can receive.
Now, the real problem came with convincing a doctor to do it. I got lucky and only had to call two before one would talk to me, and he did still try to talk me out of it briefly. I stuck to my guns, though, and provided all of my reasonings behind wanting one, even stating that if I ever did have kids, I would absolutely adopt and that I don’t want to bring a kid into this world ever. I imagine that if I’d really wanted to, I could have cited some nonsensical religious reason and the discussion would have ended there, but that thankfully wasn’t necessary.
Once he approved me for receiving a vasectomy, we chose a date (I picked Valentine’s Day because, like I said, I’m a romantic… and it was also the soonest he could see me, about six months later) and I paid my copay. He told me where to go and pick up my prescription that I would need to take before the surgery. It wound up being a lot of drugs that I genuinely didn’t need. There was a nasal spray, some pain killers, and valium. I personally don’t want anything to do with valium after seeing how it altered the behavior of someone I was close to, and the nasal spray seemed a bit overkill, so I just took the recommended dose of the painkillers and went in to get the surgery done. I’m glad I only did the painkillers because they were absolutely enough. I barely felt anything, which I’ll get into now.
What About the Procedure and Recovery? Did it Hurt?
Nope. Listen, I’m a giant baby. I’m not ashamed of it. Okay, I’m a little ashamed of it, but not so ashamed that I won’t admit to it on this blog post. My pain tolerance is low and I have an overwhelming fear of needles. The vasectomy was… not all that painful. I did feel it, and I was conscious, but I don’t think it ever hurt, it was just very uncomfortable. The main struggle with the whole thing was hearing it happen. Hearing all the cutting, seeing the knife. I think I would have had a better time if he’d just played some music and put a blindfold on me, but oh well, it got finished.
As for recovery, the pain did come a few hours later, but even that wasn’t too bad. It felt a bit like I’d been kicked down there, and I limped around the house a bit. That lasted twenty-four hours, and I’d been told to expect a week. By the end of the second day, I felt pretty much normal, with no discomfort at all. I was genuinely surprised by how quickly I felt “normal”. It really was not that bad at all, and this is coming from the world’s biggest baby when it comes to medical stuff and pain. Two years later, there isn’t even a scar. Want me to prove it?
I’m not offering to prove it, I’m just wondering if you’d want me to, ‘cause that’s really weird if so. Why would you even admit that?
Conclusion
All right, I think that’s about as personal and intimate as I can get, here. I hope don’t eat those words later when I do a post that’s somehow more deeply personal than this. Can’t imagine what that would be, at least as far as what I’m willing to share, but there you have it. This has been my personal vasectomy experience and I hope you took something away from it. Fellas, just go and get it done. Seriously, it isn’t that bad and you’ll be glad that you did it. A bit of discomfort for two days or less is absolutely worth eighteen or more years of your life that you won’t be able to spend traveling and buying crypto or whatever you want to do with all the money you’ll save.
That’s my story! Thanks so much for taking the time to check out this post, I really appreciate it! If you’d like to see more from me, the best way to do so is to subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can also follow me on social media, I’m @TLBainter on most platforms! I’ll have links to all of those down below for you to check out.
Until next time, bye!