As a forewarning, as this is my blog, I will feel free to share my opinions, even should some find them offensive or divisive.
This thought has crossed my mind on more than one occasion but it was recently brought to my forefront again when I stumbled across another blog. I do not consider those who are dealing with a vasectomy reversal to fall into the male infertility category. Although I am sure that there is a lot of pain, heartache, and cost involved for those who are dealing with a vasectomy reversal, I strongly resist the attempt to lump those who have voluntarily chosen to sterilize themselves, and for whatever reason have changed their minds, in the same category as those who have been blindsided by male infertility. They simply do not equate. I don't choose to play in the pain Olympics (to borrow a phrase), but it's simply not the same and it's not infertility.
Someone who has CHOSEN not to have children (or subsequent children as the case may be) does so willingly and with the knowledge of the rate of failure for a reversal procedure as well as the impact on future fertility. And so does any woman who chooses to marry someone who has made that choice. That is not the same as the man who has no hint of his lack of fertility or his likewise unknowing partner, both of whom have no CHOICE in the matter.
One of the losses of infertility often discussed is the loss of control. A vasectomy is the ultimate assertion of control over fertility- the voluntary ending of it. Even if one later regrets that decision, it was still a decision that the fertile man made. The truly infertile man never gets the chance to assert any control over his fertility or lack thereof and as such suffers that loss.
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5 comments:
I must agree with you wholeheartedly!
I also agree! An infertile man has to deal with being blindsighted with their infertility.
AMEN!
I too feel it is NOT the same. I couldn't have said it better myself. My husband (and therefore myself) had absolutely no clue that he could be infertile.
Neither of us CHOSE anything like this at any point in time!
What would be a better term for the post vasectemy reversal cases? It seems it is a kind of secondary infertility - but again, that implies that it is some kind of quirk, that it's something out of one's control that has happened.
Mmmm... I'm having a block in trying to come up with a term. Oh, how about FCPC - Fertility Challenged by Previous Choice?
Am right there with you.
As the wife of a man with a vasectomy (and failed reversal), I both agree and disagree with you.
On the one hand, neither of us was blindsided by his infertility. On the contrary, we quite enjoyed it until we were ready to start trying to have children. As is probably typical, he had had the vasectomy years and years before, after having two children with his then-wife. I of course knew about it before we married and knew it might cause problems (i.e. might not be reversible).
On the other hand, two other things were true. First, I married the man because I was in love with him. So sure, I "chose" him and chose to get married knowing he couldn't have children without medical help, but it wasn't like I could have married a fertile version of him -- it was the vasectomized version or nothing (would you tell a woman who fell in love with a man infertile due to chemotherapy that she had chosen badly?). Second, I really had no idea how difficult conceiving would be, or how important it would become to me. When we married, I was a twenty-something newlywed acquiring a husband and two teenaged stepkids; sure, I knew I wanted children in the future, but it seemed a distant future, and other routes to parenthood -- including stepparenthood and eventually, adopting -- seemed like acceptable options. Also, I knew male factor infertility was relatively easy to overcome.
And it is, but not if (as turned out to be true in our case) the female partner also has issues. Not until I was told I couldn't have children who were genetically related to me did I realize how important this was to me. Surely I'm not alone in that.
All that said, the vasectomy does have some advantages, even in the context of an infertility diagnosis (and if you don't want to call his condition infertility, surely my infertility still counts?). I have many, many, many fewer two week waits than most infertiles do...the rule is simple: did we do IVF this month? If not, well, I'm not pregnant. So there are many fewer false hopes -- of course, there's also no hope of a surprise.
Finally, sure, my husband chose his infertility. That is one of the many things I love and respect about him: he was willing to take responsibility, once he and his then-wife no longer wanted additional children, for ensuring that they didn't have any more. He was willing to let a surgeon with a scalpel near his scrotum, which many men aren't. It's too bad his wife later left him, but not too bad, because had she not, I wouldn't have gotten to marry him, nor to have these wonderful stepchildren, in my life. Still, the infertility that resulted for us -- maybe not him, but us -- sucks.
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