Active discussions

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Dadsnet

Speak to new fathers on our Dads forum.

Original poster

Vasectomy - what could your wife/partner do to persuade you to have one.

81 replies

adelicatequestion · 01/03/2007 22:23

DH is dead against and says he will leave if I pressure him into having one.

Why are some men scared by this?

I have had babies, ceasarians, coils, pills etc and he's worried about a 20 minute snip!!!!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
Madoldcatlady · 02/03/2007 23:34

Ok, I'm falling asleep here.(Hence the typos!!) Shall we agree to disagree? I guess it's each to their own.

Night all.MOCL.x

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 02/03/2007 23:38

LOL at "lopping off healthy tissue"! What do you think they do? Hack his penis off with a blunt instrument??

It's a tiny internal snip.

On this basis a great many men decide that having seen their wives go through a great deal of emotional and physical upheaval in order to bring children into the world (their children at that) that it's the least they can do at a point when it has been mutually decided that the family is complete.

Sobernow · 02/03/2007 23:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pann · 02/03/2007 23:47

like that, Sobernow.

trouble is I am agreeing with everyone! Because....it is v. individual, and people come to differing conclusions.

I did volunteer for the snip, rather than have exp. go through the invasiveness of her op. IMO, once the decision has been made, there is no real copmetition about which one has the op.

Madoldcatlady · 03/03/2007 09:36

Ok so you experienced life threatening conditions during your pregnancies. To get pregnant again would put you at great risk.

Don't you think it would be a wonderful thing for the man in your life to do the right thing and stop that from ever happening to you again?

Oh, and bearing the life threatening pre eclampsia in mind, him not getting you pregnant again is hardly "something for my convenience"!!!

I can't get my head roung the fact that you talk about your husband not wanting any more children "atm". It suggests a transience to your relationship, given that you clearly wont be having any more.

I know we've drifted away from the OP here, so I rest my case.

I am very grateful to my husband for being brave enough to go through a vasectomy. Of course he wasn't thrilled at the procedure, but the freedom it has allowed us both is wonderful. I don't need to be pumped full of hormones any more for one thing.

You and your DH work differently to us and that's ok for you.

Sobernow · 03/03/2007 10:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Eulalia · 03/03/2007 18:01

Madoldcatlady- Yes of course we'd either be together (or not) but why complicate life unnecessarily and have the choice to have more children taken away from you. A vasectomy at a relatively early age completely rules out that choice. I think its the finality of it that makes it a hard choice to make, hence why many doctors counsel against young men having them. I am not sure what age they think its OK and whip out their scalpel at the drop of a hat.

I believe also that some won't do sterilisation at the time of C/S because it is felt that a woman can't make an unclouded decision about something like that during pregnancy.

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 03/03/2007 18:14

Eulalia, it's not about age; it's about family circumstances. You have to have counselling first, as a couple, before they agree to do the vasectomy. They ask you lots of searching questions as well.

The reason many couples choose to have the option of more children taken away from them is because for some of us, the risk of an unplanned pregnancy is just too big a risk. Personally I am not at all sure I could go through with a termination and yet there is no way we could have had another baby being as our last was unplanned and severely disabled.

Even in less extreme circumstances, eg when people are considering their finances etc, most would prefer to illiminate the risk of a unplanned pregnancy rather than have to make the agonising decision over what to do with one when it arises.

auntymandy · 03/03/2007 18:16

not really read this thread, so might be repeating what others say. I would never ask my husband to have the snip. If I chose not to have more children then I would do somrthing about it, but would never assume he doesnt want anymore. He is alot younger than me and in the future who knows what might happen? Something could happen to me and he might re marry and want chldren with someone else. I have no right to take that away from him..it would always be his choice.

Glassofwine · 03/03/2007 18:19

We had three babies in three years and dh offered to have the snip. We've had loads more sex since and I know he'd recommend it purely for that reason alone

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 03/03/2007 20:15

Quite GofW. I think a point that is being missed here is that nobody is talking about "taking the man's choice away" (we're hardly going to drug him, tie him down and get two bricks out! ).. but that most senstive, caring and responsible men would offer to have it done... that would be their choice. Try as I might, this is the only way I can really see it. If you've got a partner who doesn't think that way, perhaps you are just making excuses for his selfishness?? Just a thought..

And in the outside chance of death of a partner/new partner scenarios, this doesn't automatically mean he is required to make more babies! It's as if some of these men see themselvles/their women see them as prime stud material! Many men are just as capable as knowing when "enough children are enough" as a woman is!

And you can chew on that/vnet back without any comeback if you like because I am going to watch Casualty in bed.. ciaou!

hana · 03/03/2007 20:30

( you don't need couple counselling to have it done......I actually asked about it at my 6 week postnatal check and he did a referal letter there and then for dh, who then saw a consultant about it a few weeks later.)

themanfromiPannema · 03/03/2007 21:13

counselling - no.

GP referral, who said "are you sure?" that was the extent of it. I said "yes".

that was it.

DrDaddy · 03/03/2007 21:23

ChicPea - also, my BIL who is an consultant anaethestist told me that there can be complications for men who have heart bypass surgery because they can have an extreme allergic reaction to one of the drugs they use during that op. They're not sure why.

expatinscotland · 03/03/2007 21:28

I agree, Shiny.

FWIW, my ex husband got a vasectomy when he was 34 having never fathered any children.

He is half-German, and very amused by the British reactions of 'what if you meet someone who wants kids' 'your partner dies and your new one wants kids' etc.

As he said, he was rather insulted by these comments, because it assumes he's not mature enough and wise enough to make such a decision about his own body.

As he said, 'If I meet a partner who wants children, she's not for me and I'd break it off, because I don't want children. How about 'No, sorry, I don't want to go there?'

I mean, putting forth such scenarios to men is, IMO, very demeaning to them, because it assumes they're incapable of making a permanent decision about their reproduction.

We'd never do that to women, so why to men?

JodieG1 · 03/03/2007 21:32

My had had the snip over 2 weeks ago now and our 3rd child is 7 weeks old. He wanted one and felt no different after having it at all. He didn't feel that it was linked to his manhood in the slightest.

expatinscotland · 03/03/2007 21:33

Btw, he met a woman who'd been sterilised w/o ever having had any children a couple of years before she met him!

She never wanted any children, either - she's a couple of years older than he is.

They're now happily married.

JodieG1 · 03/03/2007 21:34

My dh not my my

JodieG1 · 03/03/2007 21:35

wrong again lol

Eulalia · 04/03/2007 11:52

sorry not had time to catch up but just caught your coment expat. interesting. I'd say it's because men generally have less control about children, ie its the women who actually have them and still more often they get custody. A woman knows when she doesn't want more because she's hte one having done the work. A man doesn't have to do a lot to make a baby! Yes they do have to provide for them etc etc but a partner could just bugger off with all the kids (like what happened to my dh) and leave the man behind bereft of children.

Also why can men reproduce naturally till they are in their 80s..

Eulalia · 04/03/2007 11:55

sorry ds interupted me there! Just wondered how many men who had the snip regretted it or if its their partner who asks for a reversal. was going to say more but forgotten!

Sobernow · 04/03/2007 12:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 04/03/2007 13:16

They have stopped making one GP-led counselling session compulsory before an NHS vasectomy, have they? My friend's DH had one recently and they had to go for this appointment before the GP proceeded with the referral..

It think it's only common sense really.. for the doctor to talk to both halves of the couple first before referring.. am amazed if they have abolised this..

Blandmum · 04/03/2007 13:24

I asked for a sterilisation for me, and didn't have councelleing. Dh was never asked for his views on the matter.....I asked the doc if dh needed to see him and he said 'No, your fetility is your own buisness, nothing to do with anyone else'

ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands · 04/03/2007 13:27

I suppose it's a slightly different this way round though as the woman is the one who becomes pregnant/gives birth etc. Would have thought the fertility issue was still her husband's business too though..

Swipe left for the next trending thread