My old workmate C told me all about his on a trip to Dell in Limerick the day after it had been done and he seemed fine. Mr B in Paris last week concurred that it was not such a big deal. I also saw the documentary last year where that brave man from Galway bared his knackers for all to see as his tubes were cut. The valium made him collapse in fits of giggles and I wondered if this was standard practice.

Add to this the gentle encouragement of Catherine’s sister Claire “I’ll come after you with garden shears if you even think about another baby” and we decided that enough was enough. I visited Dr Pillay at the start of December to talk it through and once he heard the number “5″, he didn’t probe for motivation any further. It all sounded pretty straightforward: snip snap, bish bash bosh, few days of discomfort and off ye go and climb Everest.

Catherine checked multiple times that I was ok with the idea and that I wasn’t rushing in. I guess I must be deeply shallow because in my mind it was at the same level as a root canal or deviated septum op. No concerns about emasculation or man breasts (I have those already), no “what if my entire family is killed in a fire and I want to have more kids when I’m 70?” type questions. Just simple basic “my wife cannot take the pill until menopause” and “Five is enough. Enough. Seriously tho, enough.” Maybe I’ll wake up one day and scream “oh dear jesus my testicles are no longer connected to my vas deferns” but I doubt it.

The only prep that had to be done was hair and the major question to be answered – blade or cream? Blade – are you mental or something? Veet it was. Hmm, that’s an interesting look for me, sort of a comb-over effect. Why does no-one ever mention that Veet burns? Ahh, small print, avoid genital area. Ow ow ow.

I headed in on Friday 14th and unfortunately forgot about the goddammed Christmas shoppers and arrived 15 minutes late, totally stressed and sweatin. To quote my buddy Eoin, the following bits may be TMI for you. So stop reading now if you are of a delicate nature.

I’d had the heating on full blast all the way in to avoid the Atlantic Swim Effect but the stress of being late negated all of that. Dr Pillay was lovely and asked me if I wanted to relax for a few minutes. I didn’t. For some idiotic reason I thought I might be able to read during the op and brought “The Wisdom of Crowds” with me. He found this amusing.

So up onto the couch in the corner of his office, keks off, iodine on and we were in business. He warned the local would hurt but it was fine. The incision began and all was well. Throughout the entire thing he had Cork’s 96FM on with that horrendous gobshite who does the chat in the mornings. He had on some blokes who have been doing panto since the 50′s and it kept me nicely distracted the whole time as the only thought going through my head was “This is where Radio Jay on Gift Grub gets his material from”.

Some warnings of pressure from the doc, then, jesus fucking christ man are you trying to kill me, arggggh. “Oh did that hurt?”. Did it hurt? Did it hurt? Would you like me to stick a rusty nail in your nuts so you can get some sense of it? He added more local. Still no joy, so he added some more. At this point I was going to ask for an epidural but the last jab seemed to sort it out. I guess this is where the word numbnuts comes from.

Finally, the big stitches went in, I relaxed and he said “now we’ll do the right one”. Noooooooooooo, it can’t have taken that long to cut a tube and fold the two halves back. It turns out that “things kept tensing up” making his life very difficult. G’way, a man has his scrotum cut open and shockingly, it doesn’t relax into a giant fluffy balloon. Now I know why the guy on the tv was given the valium.

Liathróid a dó was complete, he sowed me up and I felt pretty ok. Lots of advice about not being too energetic. Like that’ll happen – I pulled a muscle putting a child to bed the other night. He gave me some Betadine ointment, put everything in a hammock and gave me an ice-pack for the journey home.

Drive home was ok but the ache started around Innishannon. Do you have to drive at 30mph today you stupid stupid person, movvvvvveee, I’ve just been operated on. Home. Frozen peas into ziplock and I relaxed on the couch. Pain got worse. Panadol my hole, I popped one of Catherine’s Ponstan Forte and soon the pain faded to a dull throb.

Over the next few days I was in a very bad state. As the Ponstan wore off each time, it started hurting like hell and the hammock seemed to add to it. I went hammock free for a day but it was far far worse and I put it back. Getting out of bed each morning was not fun. Wound seemed to take it’s time healing and in fact here we are three weeks later and there is still a scab. Finally one week after the op, the pain subsided and apart from the long journey over Christmas, there was no serious discomfort. I can confidently hold my own in a childbirth pain conversation now, he said, running for the door.

So now that I have put men off it for life, do I regret it? Not for a second. A week’s discomfort for a lifetime of one less major thing to worry about – I’d do it in a second again. And it looks like my best advisor was right

Just make sure you can get your hands on Ponstan!

UPDATE 1: 1st May 2007 – Just got the all-clear. Woo hoo! This is probably a good thing as we both recently started our usual “ah Síofra is such a wee darling, one more wouldn’t really be that much extra hassle”.

Technorati Tags: vasectomy, contraception, Dr+Pillay, Veet, Betadine, Hammock

For once, would one of our bloody children arrive early before my wife loses her mind and what’s left of her pelvis?

The Tailor of Secours had better hand over the Oxytocin, Prostaglandin, Epidural and Red Bull Slammer next Tuesday.

technorati tags:Braxton+Hicks, Epidural, Induced+Pregnancy, Bons+Secours

Sibéal was thrilled when she finally understood. She initially complained that “I don’t want a sister, I want a girl”. Older lads couldn’t give a hoot either way and Fionn was too busy screaming as I was trying to “teach” him how to use a beaker.

Spooky scan:

[tags]baby, Dora the Explorer, JoJo’s Circus, Lazytown, Barbie[/tags]

Four births, fours days of madness but I will never ever be able to describe it as well or as hysterically funny as this. Best blog post of 2006 so far.

[tags]Arse End of Ireland, The Swearing Lady[/tags]

When we went home, she checked her library of pregnancy books and they all said that listeria is killed by pasteurisation. So what is the reality? Is listeria a red herring?  Are there any safe non-cow cheeses during pregnancy? In any case, what are the stats on problems occuring? Ignoring goats for a moment, what is the problem with soft cheeses like brie if they are pasteurised?

Let’s use that collective swarm intelligence out there to create a bizarre answer to this conundrum and post it to Wikipedia.

[tags]Listeria, Goat’s Cheese, Chevre, Brie, Pasteurisation, Pasteurization, Iago, English Market[/tags]

A wee bit delayed, we are tickled pink to announce the birth of Chloe Sheila Johnston on June 30th in the Coombe to Louise and Kieran. The little darling weighed in at 6lbs 15oz, so our young fella should be easily able to bully her.

Kieran has decided to forego a property development empire to set up a hedge fund trading in pampers futures. It appears there is far more money to be made in nappies. Hopefully we’ll see them soon so she can meet her country cousins and demand the presence of a translator.

Whilst we are at it – big congrats to Kieran on being made partner. The little pup.

I have finally uploaded some photos of the wee mite to Flickr. He is now feeding on 1oz an hour which we are going to have to fix pronto. Oscar and Oisín completely relaxed about the whole thing. Poor Sibéal a bit put-out but being very good really. Any chance of weather somewhere between lashing rain and scorched earth?

Fionn’s First Fotos

image021.jpg
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

Another Nokia Crap-Cam picture. Proper photos to follow on Sunday.

image010.jpg
Originally uploaded by bandon1.

From Nokia Crap-Cam.

After a tough labour and a last minute race to the finish line, Fionn was born with a wail. All are well, tired and hungry. 9 lbs 7oz (4 roods metric ). Pictures to follow.

Arrived 8am. Gel applied 10,30. Some contractions. Tired. Wife fine. Doc figures we’ll be done by afternoon. Gut says quite soon. Tens discarded. Sudoku being raced through. Finished national geographic. Starting ‘car’. Snip being ordered as i type. This was the easy bit. Next few hours will not be fun for cath.

We are now 23 hours and 35 minutes away from Catherine being induced in the Bons. We still haven’t figured out if it is inducement or induction and we are having last minute hesitations about the name we have picked for him. We had decided on Cavan O’Neill but my mother objected and thought we should compromise on Navan O’Neill.

Babba was 9lbs last week. I don’t even want to think what weight he is now. We have the Epi booked for insertion in the car park (no point in wasting time) and this time we have a pregnancy TENS machine. Turns out the one we used for Oscar was for sore knees. Might explain Catherine’s slight discomfort during his delivery…..

Just as with the DeepImpact mission to Tempel 1, we will be broadcasting as-it-happens footage from the delivery room via Nokia Crap-Cam.

The next Blog posting will probably be a picture of the 87th Sudoku puzzle that Catherine has completed whilst wating for Baby Anakin to arrive.