jenniferbullockphotography

He gets a vasectomy reversal?

Whoa. Rewind!

(forgive me – this blog post is WAY too long!)

Seven years and almost two months ago, I gave birth to my second child - the most beautiful, amazing and scrumptious baby boy I had ever seen! The most AMAZING love at first sight (as with our daughter) and overwhelmed with incredible joy.

The not so joyful part?

 LABOR!

You could say that while I was in labor with my almost born son, I knew that my body could never physically experience such misery again and that the best solution was to have my husband get fixed. Yep. Vasectomy FIXED. I wasn’t going to give him a choice. It just HAD to be done (because, it IS easier for the guy to get fixed than it is for the woman). I really wanted a permanent solution that would prevent my poor (like seriously very, very poor from an accident many years ago) body. They say that pregnancy and labor gets easier with the next, but in my case – it was the opposite.  It was awful. So, so awful.  Including a few “minor” complications – but just plain AWFUL.  You know what else “they” say?  ”They”, also say that you forget about all of that pain.  And you wanna know what I have to say to that?

BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Just thinking about the pain I went through during my second labor makes me hurt again and wanna cry like a baby. Besides, I now have one perfect little girl and one perfect little boy, and TWO is the “PERFECT” number of children. . . .so there is NO need to have another baby. Everything is now so perfectly perfect, so let’s just please get the hubster fixed and move on! And by the way — it did have to take some convincing to get him on board with this. It’s not like he was feeling giddy over the thought of a stranger snipping away at his manhood. BUT, he loves me and knew that the pain of my second labor was unbearable, and that two healthy beautiful children is enough. So almost one year after our son was born, he agreed he do it.  And he did.

Fast forward a few years later. . . . .

I start craving babies.  A BIG baby appetite.  It must just be a phase, though.  Because I “know” I wouldn’t ever ACTUALLY want a third baby. Plus, we permanently made that impossible.  So, I’ll just babysit other people’s babies, photograph babies, oooh and ahhh at babies in the stores.  It’s simply just a phase and admiring other people’s babies, instead, will totally make do. Right?

Uh – No.

I think I went through this “phase” for about a year before I realized that this feeling isn’t just a phase — it is an actual desire. A genuinely true, deep, all that my heart could feel and all that my mind could think about, desire.  But how do I actually express this to my husband? It was *I* who practically begged him to get the vasectomy. It was MY idea. It was *I* who initially said that two children is more than enough. I am the one who convinced my husband that our family of four is just perfect and there is no reason to change that.  Because of ME, he had that vasectomy done. SO, how on earth could I even begin to express this deep desire I have to him?  And then what? Actually ask that he gets his vasectomy reversed???  Wait.  WHOA.  Hold on.  It’s almost as if I have no right to even say anything to him about this. Like, how dare I.  Shame on me. I’m feeling so ashamed. Shame, shame, shame! Well, OK. I got over all that and told him anyway. After expressing this baby desire to him, I then finally {sweetly} asked that he get it reversed. Of course, this did not go over well with him. Not only because of the obvious less than exciting procedure he’d have to go through {again}, but we’re also talking about $$$$$! Insurance doesn’t cover the reversal procedure and Dr.’s around here charge a disturbing amount of arms and legs for it.  I am feeling so bummed now.

To speed up what is already too long here, over the course of another year – I did a lot of internet research for Dr.’s around the country, a lot of asking around, and A TON of BEGGING to my husband to agree to having the vasectomy reversal.  After someone on Facebook told me about a super reputable and semi-affordable Dr. in New Jersey, and after a lot of cries and frustrating moments during the times of begging the hubster. . . . .he *finally* agreed to having the procedure done. It wasn’t that he was against the idea of having another child (because he really isn’t and never was), but that the biggest concern was having to dish out a bunch of $$$$ to reverse a procedure that *I* begged to him have in the first place.  And, again. . .he’s not too thrilled with having his “goods” under the knife again. Who could blame him?

 After a couple of years of badly wanting another baby again and begging my husband to agree to have the reversal, I am happy to finally say that we (he) is scheduled for this super stellar procedure in May this year. This is a HUGE deal! It took so long it seemed to make this first step towards *hopefully* expanding our family again! Which brings me to *one* of the reasons why. . . . .

I am taking some time off again this year from photographing weddings. In big hopes that we’ll be expecting late this year or sometime next year, I want to be sure I can focus on the pregnancy without being tied down with weddings. It’s just too much. But then I realized (after we scheduled this reversal appt. for May just a week ago), that I can still do weddings up until June, because obviously I’m not pregnant *yet*. Duh! lol. (I already announced I couldn’t accept anymore weddings this year).  Sooo. . . .if there are any “last-minuters” getting married before the end of June, I can still handle your wedding! The majority of my wedding inquiries were for the end of summer and fall, however, and I could not accept those weddings – as I am hoping I will be preggers around that time. I accepted just one wedding in the fall, which is about all I could handle around that time of year, *IF* I am preggers. . . .alongside another challenge I am dealing with. . .which I will talk about in another blog post.  Soon, the reasons will be more evident for why I have slowed down this past year (2011), and for this new year as well. 

Back to the start of this post. . . .my dearest, wonderful husband is getting the reversal done for the same reason he had the vasectomy done in the first place: Because he loves me. He loves me to pieces and is just so amazing.  I really don’t think there is anything he hasn’t done for me yet. I’m a super, duper lucky woman to have HIM for my husband, and our children are beyond blessed to have HIM as their father. I really do not know what we’d do without him. Because of him, we are SO blessed.

And because a photographer’s blog is always best with a photo (even if it’s a cell phone pic), this is how I got the very first ‘OK’ from the hubby that the reversal procedure will be a sure thing:

 (Yes, I still have typos, even when I’m actually writing. And in defense for our awful handwriting, this was written (and signed) in the palm of our hands)