Kindergarten and a vasectomy

Just about a year ago, I was preparing my family to start a new life, in a new state, far away from all our friends and family. At the same time I was planning a birthday party for my three sons, who were turning 1, 3, and 5. It was at that point in time that I looked at the life I had and I looked at my future ahead of me and I thought, “Yep, I’m done. Our family is complete.” Fast forward a little less than a year to this fall where I found myself faced with two major life changes; my oldest starting all day kindergarten and my husband finally making the appointment for the vasectomy he had been promising for over two years (yes, before our youngest was even out of the womb). Suddenly, I realized, that nothing will make you question your life decisions more than a kid starting kindergarten and a husband’s impending vasectomy.

I swear it, a year ago I was done! No more babies for me! I was down to a happy size six, I had two out of three kids out of diapers, and I was finally able to free up some room in my garage by getting rid of all the baby toys and clothes that my youngest had out grown instead of saving them for the next one. I felt free! So when my husband told us that we would be moving away from everyone that we knew shortly after my youngest turned one, any sadness that I felt about “my baby turning one” was overtaken by the terror of “oh god, I can’t imagine having another kid without all my friends and family around to help. I’m not sure how I’m going to survive without them all with the three kids that I’ve already got!” So as I packed and purged in preparation for our move, I dumped all things maternity and baby that I could. Goodbye maternity clothes and post-baby-body clothes. Goodbye newborn to 9 month baby clothes. Goodbye co-sleeper. Goodbye Bumby, bouncer, glider, and high chair. Goodbye double stroller, the other two can walk. Goodbye anything baby related that we wouldn’t need in two months when we finally unpacked!

As we got settled in our new home and I started to unpack, it felt good to not be bogged down with all the baby stuff that had cluttered our lives for the past five years. The kids were growing up and becoming a little more independent, playing for longer stretches without needing me to entertain them or intervene. They were doing more and more on their own, so my husband and I began to entertain the idea of getting our lives back a little and began imagining the things that we would soon be able to do with the kids getting older. This went on through the summer until late July, that’s when my husband came home with a date for his vasectomy. He would do it at the end of the summer, just before our oldest started all day kindergarten. I should have been over the moon at the idea of all the freedom we were about to have, but instead, it all hit me like a ton of bricks. By summer’s end we would be starting our first child down the road of full time school. It would only be a matter of time until he’d be off to college (like 13 years)! We’d also be sealing our fate and ensuring that there would be no “oops-baby” a few years down the line, like we always joked about. Our years of parenting young children was suddenly getting so short. To make it worse, my kids were so darn cute! Were we really ready for the beginning of the end?

That’s when I came up with a crazy idea. What if we just threw caution to the wind and let fate decide our future for us? After a vasectomy, a man has 3-6 months in which he could still be potent before he starts firing blanks. What if we just had at it from that very moment until, well, pretty much forever? If we got pregnant before my husband’s boys ran dry, then it was meant to be. If not, then it wasn’t meant to be. Surprisingly, my husband agreed. I guess I wasn’t the only one suffering from the effects of the life decision questioning events of kindergarten and a vasectomy.