Dh's vasectomy looming - am now getting cold feet HELP

[Moomin]

Dh has been able to get a quick referral for a vasectomy as he knows the surgeon and has been put on a list in a hospital a bit further from home so he can get in quicker. the wait in the hospital near us would be about 9 months (ironically enough).

He's 40, I'm 38. dd1 is 5, dd2 is 1 next month. I had dreadful pregnancies: severe sickness, spd and placenta praevia for both, resulting in elec sections. I'm still suffering post-dd2 with chronic back/buttock pain for which I've been referred and am due to have a MRI scan soon. I also found the last year with 2 kids quite hard, much harder than I thought it would be even though both girls are very good on the whole (dd2 still not sleeping through the night).

Every chemical/hormonal contraception that I've tried does not agree with me at all and I've enjoyed the freedom of having my body back to myself after years of taking the pill, injections, coils, etc. We both know it's the best thing to do and we've agreed that another baby would put my health and sanity at risk as well as our financial situation.

So why am I feeling distinctly jittery?!!! It's only a few weeks til the snip; dh is fine about it but I can't help feeling funny, even though I really don't think we could happily have another child. Is this normal?

God yes. We've decided not to have any more, and dh would be going for a referral tomorrow if he had his way, but I can't quite let him go. Perhaps if you concentrate on thinking that now your family is complete, rather than the (very understandable) reasons why you don't want to be pregnant again? DO you feel your family is complete, or are you thinking "if only pregnancy were easier..."?

well, i think if pregnancy was a 'doddle' for me (relatively speaking!) and I could be confident that I would cope with 3 kids, then i spose we'd go for it. But I'm getting a bit long in the tooth in some ways... I feel so TIRED! It's hard to think logically about this subject. I just don't want to look back in about 2 or 3 years and regret it. But dd2 took 2 years to conceive as well, which was horribly stressful and I wouldn't want us to have to have that again. I want to concentrate on the 2 we've got.

We've got our appointment in a couple of weeks - I'm really looking forward to it coz we'll have to take DS (20 months) whilst DD is at Playgroup and I can't wait to sit there whilst the doctor asks now Mrs Goodshag, do you think that your family is complete and that you'll never want anymore kids whilst DS wrecks the general surroundings and balls his head off

Moomin, we had some of my DH's sperm "frozen" for 3 years (I eventually let it go), for this reason. It feels so permanent, doesn't it? It all turned out fine in the end. You must baby him and keep ice on his balls, keep his feet up and don't let him do anything. Follow the doctor's instructions so that he heals properly.