The Vas Man

On TV shows and in the movies, the birth of a baby is presented as a beautiful thing. The baby pops out, smiles and coos at its blissful parents and life goes on. Though my labour experiences were quick (thank God) and relatively "normal"...only a hippy, pretentious pratt would describe the scene as beautiful. Yes, my children are gorgeous. Yes, raising them brings me joy and purpose. Yes, it's a beautiful thing that I am alive after the excruciating Hell of delivering them. But the tears I shed when my children were born were tears of relief. The first words I spoke after my breathtaking 9 lbs daughter appeared on the scene, were not loving ones, nor were they directed at her. My voice was visceral and it growled these very words at my weary husband, "I AM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!"

He took those words to heart. Last Thursday, as we were settling in for the night, Ken announced that he had made THE call. A date with The VAS MAN, had been made for early November. The VAS MAN, in case you are wondering, is the name of the doctor that performs vasectomies. Ken chose him because his name was easy to remember and he was even more stoked when he found out that he sported a moustache. Personally, I think a dude who calls himself, THE VAS MAN and sports a pseudo-Tom-Selleck is a bit creepy...but I wasn't going to say anything. After years of taking birth control, suffering through pregnancy, and having my body shredded in labour, Ken was now offering to take one for the team.

The human memory is an interesting thing. Within weeks after birthing Neal I had completely forgotten all the hassles of pregnancy and the horrific pain of labour. By the time Neal was one I was hot to trot to recreate the whole experience. It's true what they say. If they remembered it, women would NEVER have more than one child. But there is a survival mechanism fixed in the brain that deletes it all. Oh, it is stored somewhere on your cerebral hard drive because the moment I got pregnant for the second time, it all started coming back to me. What a cruel joke. So after Ella was born, I was bound and determined to keep the memory fresh. And I did remember, for a few months. But when Ken announced that he was getting permanently fixed, some (stupid) part of my brain said, "but our babies are so friggen’ cute, how can we possibly/selfishly deny the world more Wilson children???" Ken looked at me like I had just checked into the psych ward. "I am NOT having more children," he said. And that was that.

What it boils down to is that I don't really like abrupt conclusions. I like gradual transitions. This operation was going to catapult us out of our "child bearing" phase. It was one more sign that we were "getting on with our lives" or "getting older". But Ken’s appointment wasn’t until November. There were a few months to get used to the idea; or so I thought...On Friday, Ken called at 11:00am to tell me that he was on his way to sever his baby making junk. There had been a cancellation and he jumped at the opportunity - yes, you read correctly. I've told you before that he is not a typical fellow.

I was worried about him. After all, he was mutilating himself so that I wouldn't have to endure the birth control, pregnancy, labour experience ever again. I was worried that the weekend would be a man's ridiculous attempt to secure the same kind of sympathy that a recovering new mother deserves. But no such thing happened. My superhero arrived home with a beautiful piece of jewelry for me and a mere knick in his family jewels. Oh, he had some discomfort, but I had to tell him to "taker-er easy" God forbid that we'd come this far and he'd be rendered impotent or worse incontinent (which is the scare tactic that the midwives used on me to "take-er easy".

He hobbled around for a few days but didn't really complain and on Monday he was ready to go back to work. I won't go all graphic on you, dear readers...but you need to know for the next part of the story that he wasn't completely healed. There was still a bit of unpleasant bruising.

On Monday morning, it was raining. It had been a pissy night for me- my teething baby woke up no fewer than six times and by 5:30am, as I collapsed into the bed for the last time, Ken announced that he couldn’t sleep anymore and felt ready to go to work. Having spent all of Sunday in bed, convalescing, I believed him. He told me that if he left for work now, he was worried that he wouldn't have a lot of energy left over at the end of the day to play with the kids. I told him to go to work. Frankly, I just wanted him to stop talking so that I could get back to sleep.

I love my husband, but I was cursing him as he left that morning. One, he BOUNDED up the stairs loud enough to wake the dead (but thankfully not loud enough to wake the sleeping children) and Two, he forgot to lock the front door. I was too tired to drag myself up once more, so instead I laid in bed and imagined the vile intruder that could so effortlessly walk through our front door. I was imagining this when all of a sudden I heard the front door open and a person ran loudly up the stairs.

I looked at Morley, our dog. She was sound asleep at my feet. Useless. She barks at every creek and shadow during the night but when I need her to be on duty, she's in REM, eye lids a-fluttering.

"Morley!" I gave her a gentle nudge. Ok, actually I kicked her and she fell off the bed. I agree - I'm cruel when I'm tired. "What was that?" Before Morley had time to register what was happening, we heard the God-awefullest crashing sound on the stairs. The image of a masked bad guy racing up my stairs only to be confronted with the menacing baby gate made me feel slightly vindicated-for a moment.

We heard moaning. Morley was en-garde now, but not ready to leave my side. She was scared and when Morley is scared she gets very quiet and her first instinct is to hide (we have a lot in common). I barely recognized the voice coming out of the heap on the landing, but curiosity got the better of me (much to the Moo's dismay).

"Ahhhhhh," moaned the dark shadow. "Hon, help me!"

I raced up to my fallen hero. He was doubled over and in a lot of pain. His face was white and laden with pearls of sweat. His left hand was clutching his right elbow. His right hand was clutching his crotch.

Seeing this image was scarier to me than if it HAD been an intruder. But not to Morley. She was relieved AND excited. She knew this old lump on the floor. It was Daddy! Daddy was playing a GAME!!!! And when she and Daddy play games, she jumps and wraps her paws around his neck. Usually they both love this game. But today, because of his unusual position, Morley didn't get her paws around his neck. He attempted to push her away and she lost her balance and came crashing down on...you guessed it: His nuts. Let's just say, Morley was in the dog house for a few minutes after that...

In fact, his nuts were fine, but his funny bone was badly injured. He howled in misery for 20 min. and was convinced that it was broken. The swelling convinced me- so I convinced him to go to the hospital.

By the time he got to the hospital, the pain had subsided quite a bit. The doctors told him he had deep contusions and maybe some ligament damage (aka. a very bad bruise).

I wonder how my husband would have handled labour. I'm guessing that there would have been a lot more swearing...and one less baby.