Finally Turned in the 'ol "V-Card"

So I haven’t posted in a while, but that is not due to a lack of important events. As most of you have heard by now, I finally have had the vasectomy reversal surgery. I would like to take this opportunity to share my experience to aid other men who may be on the fence about getting this relatively simple procedure.

First thing, I had to travel from Tucson, AZ all the way to Fort Lewis, WA. Not a bad trip, but I got in late and it took me some time to get to my hotel…thanks to my best friend Ryan who was visiting a friend in that area, and they invited me out for drinks before my surgery. Anyway, creepy little hotels with no TV aside, it was not a bad trip. Surprisingly, it was very relaxing.
So on Monday the 10^th, I went in for my pre-op appointment. I hadn’t had to have a surgery in quite some time, ironically enough the last time I needed surgery was the last time I saw Ryan prior to this, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Honestly, I felt like I was clearing post, getting ready to PCS to another duty station. I had a packet that I had to carry around with me while I stopped at half a dozen offices and hear a bunch of different people tell me the same things. All and all, this portion of the trip wasn’t too exciting, but I do have to let you all know that I felt that the staff at Madigan Army Hospital was phenomenally friendly, knowledgeable, and just plain awesome!

So on Tuesday, the time had finally come to me to turn in my “V-Card”. I would once again have the opportunity to reproduce….a scary thought, I know. But I did feel too nervous, and with a very relaxing staff, I was easily able to stay calm. Once I arrived at the hospital, I signed in and since I was the first case of the day, I got right to business. I got changed into the ass-less gown, and my yellow skid resistant booties (which I decided to keep). I laid down in my bed and had the all star cast from the day prior come over and talk to me one at a time. Finally the anesthesiologist came to set up my IV, and after what felt like five minutes I WAS OUT COLD!

After what felt like five minutes later I WOKE UP! And yes, I kind of felt like Sebastian Janikowski kicked my stuff a whopping 65 yards through the uprights. But even though I didn't feel super great, I did wake up to food in front of me, so that was a pleasant surprise. First thing I did before eating was call Traci, to let her know that I was awake, and doing ok. I’m guessing she could sense that I was still kind of out of it, because we didn’t talk long and she told me to take a nap. She’s too awesome. Now that I think about it, every time I woke up…there was a new plate of food in front of me. Since I went to WA alone, the docs wanted to keep me in the hospital for the night to let the medication run its course allowing me to be able to drive home. My post op nurse was awesome, and to her credit got me extra food when I asked. I got used to the aching south of the border rather quickly. After a while I really didn't feel much at all. That is, until I tried to pee. That was a little difficult the first day, but the discomfort quickly subsided. My time spent in the hospital consisted of eating, sleeping, going pee a lot, and watching TV. I can actually remember what I watched…I watched a gumball marathon on cartoon network and the NBA playoffs. Good times if you ask me.

After I got discharged from the hospital, I spent my last full day there just sleeping, and watching movies (thanks Bruce for your hard drive), and talking to Traci on the phone. That pain wasn’t really pain, more of an annoying discomfort from time to time. Nothing to really complain about. Actually, I didn’t and haven’t taken ANY pain meds since I left the hospital.

Then I flew back home, had Traci pick me up, and we feasted….on Chick-Fil-A….and it was amazing. Then we all went home, and all was good in the world. I truly feel as though the hardest step to get to is now behind us, and now we have to face the one that will test our patience as a couple, and that’s actually conceiving. Needless to say, I have recovered to the point when we can start trying, and I am feeling just fine.  I appear to be all healed up and now the next thing to do will be to have my follow up and get a semen analysis done, to make sure that the surgery did what it was set out to do.

Time moves on and it’s time to prepare for the next leg of our journey. I feel like I'll get there faster since I got that V-Card that was in my wallet not weighing me down.

Til Next Time,

Jay

Let the FUN Begin!

Today marks one week post surgery. Everything seems to be healing nicely. Jay says he hardly notices it and that it's almost completely healed. The doctor recommended we wait two to three weeks before trying to conceive and so far we've made it a week. The doctor did say for Jay to pay attention to his body and his pain levels because it will be the first to tell him if he's pushing himself too hard or if he's ready. Hopefully, we can try this cycle but we'll see. We have about a week long window to try to get pregnant and it begins before his two weeks are up so hopefully he's feeling up to it sooner than later. If we get pregnant this month, I'd be due late March or early April and would have the baby here in Arizona. 

I did contact Sacred Healing Arts in Hawaii. They seem to be the only office that has home birth midwives in all of Oahu. I told them our circumstance and asked if they aid in home births after c-sections (HBACs). They emailed me back saying that they did do HBACs and would like to do a phone interview with me. I'm not sure if I should "waste" their time just yet as I don't even know if I'll be having a baby out there. I was just emailing them to see if they were even an option because if not I'd probably have to fly someone in to assist me. I do have someone in mind but I don't think they thought I was serious. So if you're reading this... I'm as serious as a heart attack! I don't want to go through another c-section unless it is absolutely medically necessary and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to avoid it until that point. 

Of course once they know my history, they'll be better able to tell me if they would be able to assist me through an HBAC but since I've done so much research and spoken with other midwives, I don't believe there is a reason for me not to attempt an HBAC. 

As I start realizing that pregnancy is becoming closer to a reality, I'm day dreaming of baby furniture and cloth diapers. Would it be too early to start a registry? I suppose I could always change my mind about things I want and it's not set in stone on the registry. Plus knowing what I was having might change a few things but I'm just so excited and want something to occupy my time that isn't just all about trying to conceive. We've thought of names for both boys and girls. We've discussed the fact that we want to cloth diaper, and breast feed. We're discussing our options for co-sleeping and different cradles, pack n plays or bassinets for the baby to have available to him in our bedroom besides the crib in the nursery.  I don't want to jinx anything by purchasing anything just yet but I'm so anxious to do so. I thought maybe a registry would help ease my shopping desires. What do you think? Set up a registry or not yet? 

Until next time,
<3 Traci

And on to Step Two!!

(8:21 am 11 June 2013) This morning at 6 am, Jay went in to Madigan Army Medical Center for his vasectomy reversal. Sadly, I'm still in Arizona and I'm not really sure what time he went into surgery. He last posted saying he was going back around 7 am so hopefully he'll be done in the next few hours and I'll hear something from him. I'm thinking I probably will not hear from him until noon or later. I'm anxiously waiting to hear what the doctor tells him and if they think there is a change. Once they are in surgery, the doctors will have a better view of things and know whether or not things might function again. Even if the doctors see that things should heal fine, that doesn't necessarily mean that little guys will start swimming again. Fortunately we're young (ish) and he hasn't had the vasectomy for very long. The optimal time to do the reversal is in the first 3-4 years, which we're about to hit 4 years next February or March-ish time frame. So hopefully, everything turns out well and we can start trying to conceive in the next few weeks, depending on how long the say we have to wait. During my research I've heard the wait can be anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks. I feel like I'm running out of things to say but I'm anxiously waiting to hear back from Jay.  I suppose since I don't feel as though I have enough to post, I'll save it until I hear from Jay.

(5:05 pm 11 June 2013) So Jay was finished with surgery around 1 pm and seemed to be fine. He was told everything went great and would hear from the doctors later. He sounded drowsy so our conversation was quick so he could get some more rest. He then called me again around 4:30 to let me know that the doctor had come in to talk to him. The doctor said everything went as planned and that we can start trying in about 2-3 weeks as long as he was feeling better and was up for it. He will have an analysis done in 3 months to make sure everything is a go, we might know sooner than that though! Hehe. I'm already wishing I could run out and buy a bunch of new baby stuff. I'm going to be dreaming of baby names, cloth diapers and nursery furniture. I've started looking for midwives in this area and in Hawaii. I've counted due dates based on when we might get pregnant. If you can't tell, I'm very very excited to finally have some control over our situation. Now we just wait for him to heal up and we'll be officially TTC (trying to conceive)!!

<3 Traci

Almost done with Step one!

After my state of panic was over, Jay and I figured it all out. My mother bought the flight to Seattle and Jay figured out all the rest. I booked his rental car and his hotel. His flight left yesterday at 3:35pm and arrived in Seattle at 10:50pm. He got his car and found his hotel. I'm not sure if he did all this with out a problem but he did get there. Today he'll have his pre-op appointment followed by his surgery tomorrow. They will keep him in the hospital over night since he's on his own and he'll fly out on Thursday.

I'm so excited and we don't even know if the surgery will be a success or not. Even if it is, that doesn't mean that we will be able to get pregnant right away, or at all for that matter. I'm not trying to be negative, just trying to be realistic and know that there are several different factors that stand between us and the desired outcome. As much as I'd love to start scooping up baby stuff as soon as possible. I'm trying to be logical and realistic about it. The excitement of it all has me itching to shop and day dream about nurseries, names and cloth diapers! Despite my attempts at being logical and realistic, yesterday morning before Jay's flight, we sat and discussed various baby names. We talked about what we liked and what we didn't like. It's so hard to keep from day dreaming that I suppose discussions is all I have to quench my thirst at this point. I know everything is one step at a time but it's so much more fun to look ahead and plan that next step while waiting anxiously for the current step to be completed! I guess only time will tell and as things progress I'll keep everyone updated on our journey.

Patience is a Virtue

Waiting is hard. No matter what you are waiting for you are either waiting anxiously or wishing that time would slow down. In our case, we wanted it to hurry up and get here. Now it's here and we kind of wish we had more time. We've spent most of the last 3.5 months saving money for this day and when it came, we had spent almost all of our savings. Why you ask? Because we went on vacation and bought a new car and thought we had enough time after returning home to rebuild our savings before we got the phone call. We returned home on Sunday, 2 June. We received the phone call with a surgery date, on Wednesday 5 June. Sadly we had no time between returning home and getting our phone call to make the proper changes and additions to our savings account. So now we are scrambling to get Jay to Seattle in time for his surgery next week. While this is stressful, we are so excited for this to finally be happening. 

While I stress, pull string and beg family for help, we are at the point we've been waiting for since February. We started our journey in February when we made the decision to expand our family. While this is a big step, it's only the first step. We fought for about a month and half to get on a wait list at a military installation that preforms vasectomy reversals, until we finally got on the list at Joint Base Lewis McChord's Madigan Army Medical Hospital. We were told at the end of March that the wait would be around 4-6 months. Every week since Jay was put on the wait list, he has called the Urology clinic to ask if there has been any progress and an estimate on how much longer he'd be on the list. He even made a phone call this Tuesday (4 June) and heard the same thing we have been hearing since day one, you are 24th on the list, no scheduled surgeries and none have been preformed. We were losing hope. Scratch that, I think we lost hope, we were just going through the motions at this point to see if it would turn out. I never thought we'd get a phone call the following day to be scheduled for surgery 5 days later.

So as of right now, Jay should fly into Seattle on Sunday 9 June and he'll have his pre-op appointment on Monday 10 June with surgery on 11 June. It's not looking like I'll be able to go with him since we weren't able to build up our savings again, we'll be lucky to scrap together enough to get Jay to Seattle, a hotel room and a car for the 4 days he's there but at least we'll be able to get it done! Now we have to PRAY that this surgery works and that we are able to get pregnant. We're hoping to get pregnant sometime in the next 6 months but we've heard that it could take up to 18 months, if the surgery is a go. Lots and lots of variables and we're betting on them all. 

So we're stressing quite a bit right now, due to trying to get Jay up there and getting the surgery done. Stressing that it goes well, stressing that we're able to get pregnant sooner than later. Stressing that we CAN get pregnant. Stressing that if/when we do get pregnant, that my birth options remain the way I want them. Just plain ol' stressing. I know one way or another things will work out but I just can't help but stress. It's my nature. I almost enjoy it. Anyway, things are looking up, even if we aren't as prepared as we had planned to be but it's all in God's hands and we have to trust in Him.

<3 
Traci