I want to take a moment to say that a vasectomy reversal is not for everyone. The Church doesn’t require it as part of your penance or to prove that you have really confessed. Some families are called to this path, some are not. I know others who confessed their vasectomy but decided to live out their new found openness to life in other ways: being more involved in church ministry, pro-life work, foster care, being more available to help other families around you – there are many ways to be in service to life. I do not judge people who have had this procedure or those who don’t get it reversed. My goal here is only to tell our story. We strongly felt that our call was to pursue a vasectomy reversal. Our families were against our decision and friends thought we were crazy.
The actual vasectomy reversal was so much more than a procedure to have done. Getting to that point had been a walk of faith every step of the way. We found a doctor in New Braunfels, Texas who did reversals for very little over his own cost. He viewed it as a ministry to help people who had rediscovered the blessing that fertility is. We carefully set aside the money and planned to travel to Texas.
A few days before we traveled, I mentioned our trip and asked for prayers on a Catholic Homeschooling email list I was on at the time. Two women responded, from Michigan, that they and their husbands would be there the same time we were. We we all even staying at the same hotel!
I have tried to write about our trip many times in the last 13 years. But the time is so holy in my mind and heart that putting it into words seems almost profane. Our trip was surreal, from start to finish. Listing it as just events that happened to us doesn’t do it justice. With that said, I will try one more time to write this out.
We arrived in San Antonio very late at night, picked up our rental car and had to drive quite a while to get to New Braunfels and our hotel. We didn’t get to our room until after 2am, and we would have to leave for the doctor’s office at 5:30am.
The next day dawned bright and hot and found us in the waiting room of a small surgical office. The staff was friendly and there were pictures of Jesus on the walls. We were nervous and sleep deprived. The doctor met with us briefly. He prayed with us, for Jay’s safety and for future blessings, and then explained how the procedure would go – he would take Jay back and get him ready, then they would come and get me and I could sit near Jay’s head during the procedure.
When I walked into the tiny operating room, I was amazed at just how different this experience was from the cold, slick office where Jay had the vasectomy. The first thing I saw was this picture, hung above the operating table:
And there was quiet praise music playing in the background.
The procedure was uncomfortable for Jay, much worse than the vasectomy had been. I was able to rub his face and shoulders to comfort him. Part of the way through the surgery, the doctor called me over to the other side of the little curtain blocking Jay’s view. He had me look through the microscope and see just how tiny the thread and stitches were. He explained that showing the wives this detail made sure the men got the rest they needed to fully heal after the surgery.
When it was all done, the doctor told us about good places to get dinner around town and cautioned Jay to take it very easy. We paid and went back to our hotel to catch up on our sleep.
The rest of the trip is now a blended memory of floating from one thing to another – we wandered a book store, we attempted to go to mass but our rental car broke down, we met with the other two couples and had a lovely dinner together.
The next day, Jay had a check up with the doctor to make sure he was healing well. Then we drove an hour to an Orthodox Monastery nearby where there was an icon of Mary that was weeping myrrh. We were both blessed with the myrrh, and spent some time in prayer there.
(I have since found out unfortunate news about this monastery, and that this icon was a fraud. In spite of that, this was a very moving part of our experience. Were we blessed by a fake priest with fraudulent scented oil? I guess we were. Maybe that is not when or where our miracle occurred. It doesn’t really matter what or when the miracle was. But I still believe that the children that came after our reversal are miraculous.)
Soon we were home and swept back up into the mix of everyday life. Our trip and Jay’s surgery had been a sort of retreat for us. We both felt strongly that we were putting our whole lives firmly back into God’s hands. Would we conceive again? Would I be as sick as I had in the past?
In a complete change from where we began, we fervently hoped that we would be blessed with another baby. We had moved from fear and denial to begging God to give us another baby, along with deep sorrow for the choices we had made in the past.
The months began to tick by, one after another. Our youngest child turned 3 and I started to think that our baby days were at an end, that we had done our part, but God’s answer to us was a firm but gentle “No.”
Then – ten months after the reversal, we saw what we had hoped for – two pink lines.