snip snap snip snap!

David and I are huge fans of The Office. Maybe me a tad more than him. And our all-time favorite episode is "The Dinner Party," in which (for those few dolts out there who don't dissect each episode on Netflix like we do) is when Michael and the crazy Jan have Jim, Pam, Andy, Angela (and later Dwight and his babysitter) over for a dinner party, and proceed to make everyone there insanely uncomfortable by fighting in front of them. In one particular scene, Michael says, "When I said I wanted to have kids and you said you didn't want to have kids, who had a vasectomy? And then when I didn't want to have kids and you said you might want to, who had it reversed back? And then when you said you definitely didn't want kids, who had it reversed back again? Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap! Snip! Snap! You have no idea the kind of toll that three vasectomies have on a person!"

Which brings us to my first point. David may not know snip snap snip snap snip snap... but he definitely understand snip snap, snip snap. In the summer of 2007, he had a vasectomy. We had three children in four years, the third a total surprise very soon after the second, we were struggling financially, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. We lived in Bloomington, Indiana at the time - David was working for Indiana University and starting graduate school there for his MFA. We just went to some random urologist, paid $500 (our deductible) and an hour later, he was done.

As time went on, I would sometimes feel like it was a mistake, but since I developed post-partum depression bad after the birth of our third, we thought it was probably for the best that we not have any more surprise pregnancies.

At other times, David would feel, fleetingly, that we should have another child. But we never felt this at the same time. If one of us brought it up, the other didn't think it was right, and vice versa.

Then, earlier this year our middle child, Truman, turned eight and was baptized. It was kind of a crazy time for us. I'd been in the ER the weekend before, with a gushing heavy period and crazy pain around one ovary. They'd checked me out and found nothing wrong - but seeing my empty old uterus up there on the monitor always depresses me. Then David's parents flew in from California for the baptism, we were having friends over after the baptism, I had to teach Relief Society at church that day, and we were seriously considering buying a new house (which we toured with the in-laws while they were here). We felt like something different was happening but not sure what. Then, the afternoon of the baptism as we were lying down resting before heading to the church, I told David I thought we should have more children. He said okay. And I ran with it.

I began researching surgeons who perform vasectomy reversals. Technically, any urologist can do it, but since the vasectomy is a far more common procedure than the vasectomy reversal, most urologists don't do many each year. Additionally, it is not covered under insurance (except possibly in some very rare cases where the vasectomy caused pain and reconnecting the vas would possibly remedy that). So we were going to be paying out of pocket.

Our final two ended up being a toss up between Dr. David Wilson in Muskogee, Oklahoma, or Dr. Thomas Sommers in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Wilson charged less - $1700 - but was about a 14 hour drive away. Dr. Sommers charged $3000 but was only a 3 hour drive away. After consideration and prayer, we felt we should go with Dr. Sommers.