I’m in mourning. I’m mourning the loss of my husband’s viable sperm.

About five months ago, my extremely sleep-deprived, delirious, and hormonal self asked begged Mr. UndertheCovers to get a vasectomy A.S.A.P. Although I had said after my youngest was born that I’d love another one as sweet as him, albeit with female parts, nevertheless just as sweet, a few months in I realized that I could never do this again. My body, my brain, my love life and my sanity all got together and voted unanimously against another child ever inhabiting my womb again. Nine months of throwing up on command (the baby’s command, not mine), years of not waking up to the peaceful sound of birds, the sorest nipples on the planet, and a husband who needs a crumb-less floor to survive, have all led me to believe a fourth child should just not be in our future plans.

For months I nagged and nagged him to make his appointment, to which he balked, saying he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it. I imagined a 45-year-old me with newborn twins and my nagging turned to full-out screeching. If an accidental pregnancy was going to happen during peri-menopause, it was going to happen to us.

Last Friday Mr. U went to see the doctor, he put his balls on the table, and came home a changed man. He was happy, not feeling too sore and ready to try out the first of the twenty ejaculations he needed to rid himself of his little babymakers. The night before his “surgery”, I asked him if we should do it one last time, just to see if it was meant to be that we have another baby. He laughed hysterically, turned around in the bed and sternly said no. But then he did give me the tempting offer of giving him a blow job instead. My response was similar to his.

Reading his post-op instructions when he got home, I began to panic. The word “sterile” made my heart jump out of my chest and into my uterus. My husband is sterile. He can no longer provide me with the sperm to make those gorgeous, loving and extremely annoying children that he is so good at providing me with. What if I made a mistake and in three years when my youngest is getting ready to go off to kindergarten, I will want another baby? Well, that was precisely my reasoning for doing this NOW. Because I know in three years I will want another newborn to snuggle, another toddler to laugh with, another little being to love more than my own self, and as much as I will want that – I can’t handle it. Not emotionally, physically or mentally. I’m sure I could get by, but I feel like we’ve just gotten by for the last five or so years and I’d like to start living my life getting ahead, not always looking to the future of when my child sleeps through the night, when he stops destroying my house, when he stops screaming because I gave him the wrong cup. I want to enjoy my boys as they are and not wish and want for another. So, last Friday was the first day where I started living for what we have, rather than what we will have. I’ll have to admit though, that when my youngest woke in the night, instead of feeding him and rushing him back to his crib, I let him lay there while I rubbed his head and kissed his tiny hands.

Instead of imagining purchasing little tutus and thinking about names like Ruby and Violet, I looked at my little brood and just watched them play and smile and laugh, and beat the living crap out of each other. I marvelled at how they’ve grown and instead of wondering where the time has gone I thought about all of the years we have ahead of us together. Just the five of us. Well, and the puppy that I now have replaced my baby dreams with. At least the puppy won’t add 40 pounds to my ass or rip me another new one. I think I’ll name her Ruby.