Getting Snipped On The Front Range: A Personal Story of Choosing to be Child-Free

My journey toward child-free thinking did not begin in the parking lot of Gunther Toody’s, but it’s as good a place as any to start this story. I sat in the driver’s seat under the orange neon light of the ’50s diner and had a full-body anxiety attack. I was dating a woman whom I very much loved, but over the past few months, her paranoid delusions had become more frequent. I had sat on the floor beside her for more than one psychotic episode. These episodes left her unable to remember who or where she was and left my ears ringing from the screams.

Now, she was over a week late. One moment of carelessness and I had ruined my life. I sat in my car, unable to breathe, my body clenched up so tight I thought I would collapse into myself. A week later, she got her period, and I swore I would never put myself in that position again. By year’s end, we had broken up. I would later learn that she had been off her beta-blockers for months and lying about going to therapy.

Like most young Americans, I grew up thinking that having children was just the way things were done, something I would get around to someday. As I grew into adulthood, I realized that having kids was not something I felt in my core that I had to do. I also understood the immense responsibility that went along with being a parent. The trauma of the pregnancy scare afforded me time to reflect on what I wanted for my life.

Eighteen months after the breakup, I made up my mind. I was at a family get-together at a cousin’s remote ranch home. I had a chance to spend time with their eldest child. He was a nice boy, about six years old, with a good personality. I have some minor skills as a photographer, and I showed him how to take photos on my digital camera. He took me into the house and showed me his LEGO collection. We played a board game called Mister Mouth, where you flicked plastic bugs into a spinning frog’s head. Then, we spent a half-hour searching for a Hot Wheels cartoon on Netflix.

My cousin and their spouse are good parents, and they are raising a good son. Still, I could not imagine spending hours of my life, day after day, looking at LEGOs and playing Mister Mouth. I tried to imagine the boy as my own son, a little tyke who would run to his dad’s arms when he came home from work, but the thought inspired no paternal feelings.

I decided to schedule a vasectomy.

I have been told more than once that I would be a good father, and I do take it as a compliment. I might be a good commercial diver, too, but you won’t find me welding oil rig pipes in zero-visibility waters off of Galveston Bay. When people say I’d be a good father, they mean I’m conscientious, I’m reasonably good with children, and I have slightly more intelligence than a sack of cement. I am fine with other people’s children — for the most part. The nice thing about other people’s children is that I can visit them, and then put them in my rearview mirror and go home.

I know for my own sake that I should not be a parent. I hate loud noises and irrationality. I can state with certainty that I could not spend my life caring for a severely disabled child. I would not enjoy spending years raising a child only to have some surly teen say how much they hate me. I enjoy waking up on a Sunday and finding my home as quiet as a library. I enjoy coming home from work to an empty house where I can sit down and do nothing. I have a hard enough time getting myself dressed, fed, and out the door in the morning; the thought of doing that for another human being makes me break into a cold sweat.

Does this make me selfish? Yes, it does. Am I irresponsible? In many areas, yes. I can only say that I am responsible enough for my lack of responsibility and self-aware enough to get myself snipped. I will gladly counter-pose this against the untold hordes of men and women who think their fertility is the only excuse they need to bring a human life into the world.

Will I change my mind? This is a possibility I cannot rule out, and it’s why I thought long and hard about this choice. I decided that all things being equal, it would be better to regret not having children than to regret having children: the former might be sad, but the latter is a living hell. I have since learned that thousands of other child-free people have arrived at the same conclusion independently. In some ways, we take the idea of parenthood more seriously than many parents.

A word of warning: I would tell any man that they should not get a vasectomy just so they can have unprotected sex. I chose a vasectomy because I have chosen not to have children, and it is my way of taking ownership of that choice. The difference lies in thinking short-term vs long-term.

I have noticed some odd misconceptions about vasectomies, so time addressing them would be well-spent. First, a vasectomy is not a castration. The doctor is severing two tubes, the vas deferens, that carry sperm from each testicle to the shaft. The incisions required to cut the tubes are very small. Sperm makes up a tiny fraction of semen, so orgasms will look and feel exactly the same. Finally, will a vasectomy make you feel like less of a man? Not in the slightest.

The child-free community on Reddit has been a great help. They have a resources page listing doctors in each US state who will perform sterilizations. I picked a urologist in the Boulder/Denver area and scheduled a consultation.

Two weeks later, I was sitting in a doctor’s office, filled with apprehension. Every child-free person has heard horror stories of doctors who won’t even consider performing the snip unless the patient is married with eight kids under their belt. Would this doctor ask if I might change my mind? Oh, how they love to ask this. Would he tell me I’m too young at 32? (How old do I have to be to know what’s right for my own body?) Would he tell me life is not worth living if I don’t procreate?

The door opened, and the urologist sat down.

“So,” he said, “Ready to call it quits, huh?”

I leaned back in my chair, making a steeple with my fingers, and smiled.

“Yes,” I said.

The rest of the appointment was boilerplate: I was told that while reversible in theory, I should consider a vasectomy permanent. I was told that the procedure would take effect in eight or so weeks once the remaining sperm in my tubes had been ‘flushed out,’ so to speak. Finally, the doctor told me he’d done thousands of vasectomies, and none had failed. Would I please not be the first, he asked. I agreed. The doctor left, and a nurse came by to put a date on the calendar.

* * *

I was trying to sell a rare electric guitar. I took it to a shop in Boulder County for refurbishing. The owner of the repair shop was intrigued by the guitar, so we started a conversation about it. A similar guitar was used to play the opening riff from Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”

The owner looks up at the clock. “Man, I wish I could keep talking…” A look comes across his face, not sadness, but resignation. “… But I gotta close up and pick up my kids.”

Later that week, another man arrived at my house. I’ve had the guitar up on Craigslist, and he’s looking to buy it. I can tell the man is excited to see it. I showed him how the guitar can be plugged into a synthesizer to play the bassline for “Jam On It” by Newcleus. He digs it. I’ve sold instruments to people who barely know the black keys from the white on a piano, so I’d love to sell this guitar to someone who cares.

“Do you play anywhere in the area? Any bands?” I ask.

“I used to; I played all over the Front Range,” he says. I see that familiar look fall across his face. “Now I have kids.”

* * *

I had been encouraged to shave ahead of the vasectomy. After looking at my safety razor for five minutes, I decided to leave it to the professionals. A yard sign on the side of the parkway led me to a waxing clinic. I drove there after work and booked an appointment.

I arrived for my first-ever waxing session at 8 AM on Sunday and was taken into a back room. I was given a wipe to clean myself and then instructed to sit on the table, naked from the waist down, with a towel over my Netherlands. Since I was only having my testicles waxed and not the full “Brazilian,” I was told I would save some money.

The waxing specialist began by rubbing in a cream to limit the pain. When I get a flu shot, I watch the nurse put the needle into my arm. It’s been that way since I was a toddler. For the waxing, I opted not to look, just laid back and kept my eyes closed. I felt the specialist apply a hot wax, followed a few seconds later by a dull sting. It was nothing too bad, and I was beginning to wonder when the prep would end, and the waxing begin.

The specialist spoke to me. “Just a couple more, and we’ll be done.”

How about that?

I dressed, returned to the lobby, and paid. The specialist asked if I’d like to schedule my next appointment. I told her I was good for now.

The day after my waxing, I arrived at the hospital at 9:20 AM. The place was too crowded for my taste, so I wore a mask inside. I was taken into an examining room and given a “prize bag” containing an ice pack and two containers for sperm samples. I was warned more than once to call ahead before dropping off my samples and to never, ever just leave a sample on the receptionist’s desk if they were out to lunch.

I was told I could leave my shoes on. Clearly, they didn’t expect this to take long. I lay down on the examining table with my pants and underwear around my ankles, ready for the moment I’d been expecting for so long.

Yes, I took a selfie, unflattering fluorescent lights be damned.

The urologist and nurse came in and wasted no time. The procedure began with a feeling of rubber bands snapping against my scrotum, which was a one-time-use syringe numbing the incision site. Then came a volley of pinches as the doctor tried to isolate the first tube for cutting.

I have heard the sensation of a vasectomy compared to having your guts yanked out through your ballsack. I can confirm this is true. As with the waxing, I had no desire to look at what was happening, so it was left to my imagination what all the poking, prodding, twisting, and pulling was about. In total, it was no more emotionally uncomfortable than a hernia check during a physical, let alone a prostate exam.

I felt another snap from a numbing injection, and the doctor made small talk. Whenever a doctor makes small talk, they are trying to distract you. Fine by me.

“So, how many kids do you have, Ambrose?”

Staring at the ceiling, I replied with no hesitation: “I have exactly as many kids as I want.”

The left tube was done first, with some difficulty. The right tube was dispatched with no trouble.

I had expected to be laid out in pain for the rest of the day, but with two Advil and an afternoon in bed, I felt fine. I’m the kid who watched his nurse give the flu shot, so sure, I have a high pain tolerance. Your mileage may vary. The bruising cleared up in a matter of weeks.

By sunset, I got dressed and drove out to the mall.

I’m writing in a booth at Red Robin when the manager comes over to talk to me. I told her I remembered when Red Robin had arcade machines, and we reminisced about the TV sets they used to recess into the floors.

“Be safe out there,” she said. “Usually, I tell people to go have an adventure, but…”

I put my pen and legal pad away. “I already had my adventure for the day.”

“I hope it was a fun one,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, “it really was.”

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