by Jenny Tolley

Created on: June 05, 2008   Last Updated: November 26, 2008

I am just now coming to terms with the idea that I may never be someone's mother because of a choice my husband made while he was married to his former wife. Rationally, I can look at my husband's decision and think that having a vasectomy was the best thing he could have done at the time. However, that doesn't change the fact that now, without medical intervention, it's not likely that I will ever experience the joy of spontaneously getting pregnant. In many ways, it feels like an important decision about my future was made without my consent.

In 1993, my husband was 29 years old and married to his ex wife. They had three kids: her son from her first marriage and my husband's two daughters. My husband's ex wife had no trouble getting pregnant and they were having a lot of money problems. Pregnancy was also supposedly very difficult for my husband's ex wife. He truly thought they should be done having kids. My husband's ex wife apparently agreed, but was not willing to have a tubal ligation procedure. So, my husband, realizing that a vasectomy is so much simpler for a man, decided to undergo the procedure.

Six years after his vasectomy, my husband and his ex wife separated. Their divorce has been acrimonious, particularly regarding the kids. Though he pays plenty of child support, my husband does not see his daughters anymore. His son still maintains a relationship, but has recently reconnected with his biological father. And my husband's ex has remarried and has had at least two more children. So much for pregnancy being too "hard" for her.

My husband had a vasectomy reversal in 2004 that supposedly went very well. Unlike the vasectomy, however, the reversal was much more invasive and painful. My husband was put under general anesthesia and had to take time off work. We were lucky; the operation was done for free because my husband is in the military. He healed quickly and apparently had a lot of sperm. Unfortunately, I was still not able to get pregnant.

Over the years, I have tried to be philosophical about this situation. I understand that, in the long run, my husband's decision to have a vasectomy was probably a good one. He and his ex wife had a very rocky marriage and she's able to get pregnant easily. She also has a nasty habit of using her children as a means of manipulating other people. If my husband had not gotten surgery, perhaps they would have had more children together. Perhaps he and I would have never gotten together, which would have been a real shame because we really do love each other. Perhaps even if he had never had a vasectomy, I still wouldn't have gotten pregnant.

I still feel, however, that no man should ever have a vasectomy unless HE truly feels he is finished having children. I don't think a man should have a vasectomy simply because it's easier for a man to be sterilized than a woman. I think that if a woman decides she is done having children and wants permanent sterilization, she should be the one to get it, not the man. I don't think it's right for a man to be subjected to pressure from his spouse regarding an elective surgery that may alter his future. Many marriages end in divorce or an untimely death. Even though vasectomy reversals are available, they don't always work and they are a lot more complicated than a vasectomy is. No one should consider a vasectomy a temporary procedure.

I still love my husband very much and, in the end, it doesn't matter to me that he had a vasectomy. I would not trade him for the chance to have a baby. Besides, there's no one else on earth with whom I'd want to have a child. For now, it makes us both sad to think about the family we could have had if he had just decided to use a less permanent form of birth control.

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