Surgery

Hey everyone! Life here is good. Dad went under the knife last Thursday for a vasectomy reversal. I am finally beginning to feel normal and no longer need the pain medication anymore. I say that I am feeling normal again, but little do you know that I am writing this at 0130 hours so maybe all is not as well as I think. I take a lot of cat naps during the day and it is obviously having an effect on me. I'll try not to nap tomorrow so I can go back to work on Wednesday. I have been successful in keeping the kids and the dogs off of my lap so the recovery has been a success so far. I have three more weeks left before "relations" can commence again. I am eager to see if the doctor has been able to fix what he originally broke. He claims a 90% success rate for his patients when doing vas reversals. A lot of that success has to do with the amount of time that has elapsed between the vasectomy and the reversal. The earlier you get it reversed the better the odds. Under three years is ideal and I am at the four-year window so we'll see what happens.

The reason for the reversal has a lot to do with the catholic faith and the desire to have more children. The Catholic Church has consistently and repeatedly taught that there are two purposes for the marital union: the unitive and the procreative. She does not single out either as being more important than the other. "The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life" (Catechism #2363). Quoting Humanae Vitae, ("Of Human Life") tells us that "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil" (Catechism #2370). In other words, it is a mortal sin.

The guilt I have felt for years for doing the vasectomy in the first place has never fully left me even though I have confessed it regularly over the years and technically should have been absolved by now. Carrie and I now desire to have more children and in doing so, have the opportunity to reverse a grave injustice to ourselves and God. How can we expect our children to grow up and obey the tenets of the church if we, the parents, live a hypocritical faith and abide by only the rules we want to? We are killing two birds with one stone with this vas reversal and ask for your prayers that we are successful.