This is a trigger warning. Human bodies are gross. If that’s is a problem, can I recommend looking elsewhere on the site?
Seven weeks ago, I got a vasectomy. On Tuesday, I had to provide the sample that ended up proving my sterility. This is how that went:
1. After you get a vasectomy, the doctor will explain the procedure that you’ll undertake six weeks later, and essentially, you’ll spend absolutely no time considering it because at that precise moment, your balls hurt. Mine did anyway. So when the doctor said, “And you’ll provide an emission, and then you’ll have to get it across town to the Center For Reproductive Medicine within a half hour…” I didn’t think about the ramifications of that. I just thought, “I want to go home.”
2. But seven weeks passed – with wondrous complications, in my case – and now I wanted the entire process to be finished with. Which meant I need to jerk off into a small plastic vial. Not small. You know. Average. Whatever. It’s fine.
3. I chose the coldest day in the last six trillion years to provide my sample. I did this because I am dumb, but again, when you’ve had knives near your gentlemen’s region, you want to know if the experience has been truly worth it. Anyway, there isn’t much time to deliver the specimen to the people that need to get it. That sounds gross. A bunch of stuff had to happen at once. That’s my point.
4. Because it was so cold, I started the car so it would be warm. Things have to be warm, not just because being cold sucks, but because the specimen has to be warm. Like, it can’t get cold. So I start the car and have it warming up. Then I go back inside and put on all of the clothing imaginable. Gotta be warm. Compression shirt, woolen shirt, sweatshirt, longjohns, heavy sweatpants. But I’ve gotta produce the actual sample, so I trudge upstairs in all of this gear. I’m sweating immediately.
5. Ever had to orgasm? Absolutely had to? Right then? Takes more effort than I’d realized. Coupled with the extra clothes to keep warm, the situation also continued to get sweatier. I’m now staring at the genuine possibility of arriving at the facility a sweaty, disgusting mess, which will I’m sure not be weird in the slightest. Considering these scenarios incidentally? Considering the possibility of a sweaty, out-of-breath me stumbling into the facility, “I got it! Take it! YOU HAVE TO TAKE THIS!” They don’t make the orgasm-into-a-vial-job any easier.
6. Did I mention that there’s “A room here where you can provide the specimen, sir?” Because that’s what I’d been told on the phone. I don’t know, I guess it’s just me, and maybe I’m a real square, but the idea of showing up at a place and going, “Show me to the Jerkin It Room please!” creeps me out. Legitimately terrifies me. I guess I have more in common with social conservatives than I’d realized.
7. You reach the point of providing the sample and you’ve got to get it into the vial. This is so much sexy. The working, the aiming, the focusing, the coupling of all of that with what once used to be a pleasurable experience. And then, the realization: that’s all there is? I did all this for that?
8. Once the specimen is in the vial, the countdown is on, as is the need to keep this vial warm. So the vial goes up under the compression shirt. And now I’m headed downstairs, sperm sample strapped to my stomach. I head out the door into the cold and realize that I’ve forgotten the brown paper bag I’m planning to put the sample in before handing it over. Not the actual sample. The vial. Anyway, back into the house, back up the stairs, back for the brown paper bag, because I’m sure there’s nothing strange about walking into the Center For Reproductive Medicine with my little brown paper bag. Average. Whatever. It’s fine. I imagine people driving by the facility going, “That man has a little brown paper bag that he’s carrying delicately into the facility. There definitely isn’t a sperm sample in there!”
9. Funny Story: I’d originally been headed toward the wrong facility. In fact, I’d stopped by a different one a day earlier trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going. The very much older folks behind the place that I did stop looked at me quizzically as I explained that I’d had a vasectomy and that it had been six weeks and that, “I’m just trying to figure out where I’m supposed to be coming?” And obviously I meant the location, but that’s not really what I said, is it? Anyway, that was the wrong place. The fact that it was a church should have given it away.
10. Now I’m driving across town with this sample strapped to my belly. There’s no traffic, so I make it, but when I’m almost there, I pass in traffic a friend of mine, and I think, “I should slow down and wave,” but then I don’t, because as soon as we rolled down our windows to chat, I would have had to shout, “DAMMIT, I’VE GOT A SEMEN SAMPLE STRAPPED TO MY CHEST, STOP TALKING TO ME, I’VE GOTTA GO!”
11. I head inside and there is a woman at the counter and I stammer as I try to explain why I’m there. She is bored of course. This isn’t weird. This is her work. So she takes my name and information and asks me to sit down before they call me back and I think, “Oh god. Do they think I’m here for the room? Because I’m not. I’m not here for the room. Please not the room.”
12. How do you walk out off that room and look anybody in the eye? They know what you’ve done. You know what you’ve done. Everybody knows the score. But I bet nobody goes, “Way to beat off just now five feet away from me!” Which is good. Because they shouldn’t say that. That wouldn’t be professional at all.
13. I am called back and fortunately, no room. I hand over the bag. I’m asked to fill out some paperwork, including a questionnaire about how I’ve taken care of business. This is apparently because men routinely screw this up. They have their wives (or husbands, maybe?) help them. “Honey! Help me produce this sample!” They have sex and withdraw. They ejaculate into a condom. Anyway, I’m asked things like how I ejaculated. Any assistance risks the presence of sexy contaminants. All of this is giving me the heebie-jeebies. Anyway, the instructions are clear: go masturbate by yourself. How can anybody botch that? Then, more questions, including one asking where exactly you orgasmed. The possible answers are: In The Room (nope!), At Home (yep!), At A Hotel (?), or Somewhere Else.
14. What’s that third option? At a hotel? What does that mean? Do people get hotel rooms just for providing semen samples? How does that work? Does insurance pay? Do you just pay for the time? “I need your best suite, but for like, ten minutes, tops! Please put a mint on the pillow anyway.” And that fourth one? Somewhere Else? Am I supposed to write down, “I was just out in the parking lot. Is that not okay?” Needless to say, I fill out my paperwork and leave, hopeful never to return. I’m told, “You’ll hear from us in a few days.”
15. So I went home. Two hours later, the doctor sent me a message telling me my sperm was non-motile and that this was consistent with a successful vasectomy and that I could now trust its effectiveness. So here’s to sterility, and all that comes with it. Get it? It’s a sperm joke!
Congrats! Though considering the tone I’m wondering it should be more of a …congrats?Report
My problem was not with providing the sample months later. That was fine. My problem was with the “Wait a week” advice given by the doctor as I staggered out the waiting room. Hey, it had been a few days. I wanted to take the proverbial car out of the proverbial garage and see what it could proverbially do. Anyway, I had waited six days. What’s the worst that could happen?
Anyways, I should have waited a week. I probably should have waited two or three.
The problem wasn’t that the, erm, event itself went poorly. The problem was that, about two hours later, I felt like I had walked into someone getting ready to throw a strike.Report
Greatly enjoyed this.Report
Thanks Mike.Report
Yup. Glad to be gay.Report
Sam “Making Gays Glad To Be Gay” Wilkinson was my nickname in high school!Report
So very glad to be gay.Report
For what it’s worth, I’m also glad you guys are gay.Report
The surgery was, in my opinion, much worse than the weeks-later Filling Of The Vial ceremony and post-ceremonial courier duty. But my gay friends, I say this with sadness: I’m pretty sure that each of you has had to put up with experiences substantially more awkward, if not actively unpleasant, than this. Hopefully they were only awkward and can become the subject of “laugh about it afterwards” kinds of stories.Report
Awkward? Sure. Often
Awkward plus knives on our junk? Somewhat less common.Report
It’s good to know that gays and straights alike can shudder at the idea of knives-on-junk, but I should add this: it isn’t as big a deal as I’m making it out to be. The vasectomy I mean.Report
I accept that is the case, but nevertheless am glad I’ll never have the opportunity to find out for certain.Report
So very, very glad to be gay.Report
I had to take care of this business to have my sperm checked for fertility (obviously, prior to Lain’s conception). Because the clinic was two hours away, I couldn’t do what they recommended which was take care of business and then quickly drive to the clinic while keeping it warm. Since this was how they wanted things done, they didn’t have a room for business-taking. So I had to go into a restroom in the mall. It was a solitary restroom, not a stall in a restroom used for many people. But still, it meant that I was taking up a restroom that someone might need. No pressure, Will.
I had some… assistance materials… on my phone, which was about all I could do (since there was no business room, there were no assistance materials). I did manage, but it was among the least pleasant managements I had ever managed.Report
I love taking a trip to Euphemism City. In fact, that’s going to be my new phrase to describe the act.Report
It is, truly, a glorious euphemism.Report
by “assistance materials” i presume you mean you played “rock me like a hurricane” on repeat?
because that’s what i would have done. sure, everyone knows you’re sailing the white way, but i think it helps to have a sense of humor about it.Report
I’m so white that the sound track would have been that Savage Garden song regarding the cherry cola.Report
i was playing the splooge card, not the race card.Report
Is “sailing the white way” a euphemism too? That’s fantastic.Report
@sam-wilkinson
“Is “sailing the white way” a euphemism too? That’s fantastic.”
of course. unless it’s riding a boat down broadway. then it’s a literalism.
don’t know the term for if someone’s yankin’ it while riding a boat down broadway. sailing the white way the white way? white sailing the white way? white sailing? they all sound like euphemisms for a kkk yacht club.Report
I did manage, but it was among the least pleasant managements I had ever managed.
For the price of the service you’d think they could provide a manager, ya know?Report
This, above all others, is why you shouldn’t live in the middle of fishin’ no where.Report
Can we re-title this “Indian Jones and the Sample of Doom”?Report
I would probably enjoy it if you did “15 step” posts on pretty much everything you do, ever. These have both been awesome.Report
That’s very kind.Report
In my case, the lab had a room complete with a variety of magazines, and all went smoothly. I live such a dull life.Report
Like Guns and Ammo or something?Report
And Forbes, which I often describe as porn for people who get more excited by money than sex.Report
Hah! I too got the coldest day of the year to provide my sample. And I had to do it in my business suit. As @will-truman describes, what is usually a pleasant activity was a decidedly businesslike event even with assistive literature and photographic essays available. Which imposes some other unaccustomed logistical difficulties, combined with cold, in ensuring that the sample got in the vial and not all over the place. I enjoyed the question on the form about what percentage of product had actually been captured.
After the cross-town rocket-race with the sample in a pocket to keep it warm, surprisingly like your experience, I had to wait at the lab counter behind a senior couple who insisted that they had got there first and they should be served first and therefore I should wait with my time-sensitive, heat-sensitive sample vial while they futzed about with arguing about whether the form needed a middle name or just a middle initial.
Fortunately, the woman behind the counter at the lab took note of my apparent age and abashed facial expression. She told the older couple insisting that they had priority to pee in a jar or something ahead of me, “I need to confirm if this gentlemen has a time-sensitive sample. Do you, sir?” “Yup,” I said, “I’ve got less than ten minutes left, and my paperwork is alldone hereyougo haveanicedaybye,” and placed the vial and form on the counter and damn near sprinted out of there.
Later that day my, sterility was confirmed, so it all worked out in the end.Report
I too got the coldest day of the year to provide my sample.
All the way down in the 50s, eh?Report
Ever had to orgasm? Absolutely had to? Right then? Takes more effort than I’d realized.
I recall reading an interview with a male porn star who said one of the reasons he got lots of work was directors loved that he could do it on command in 60 seconds or less. After not doing it for a 60-minute shoot. How do you work that into one of those “what kinds of jobs would you be good at?” guidance counselor evaluations?Report
I spent part of today staring determinedly at a paper drape, wishing I was entirely unaware of what my podiatrist was doing to my toenail. (Hint: Without anesthetic, I totally would have admitted I was a witch. Or anything else).
And it occurred to me that this woman (who, I might add, is an incredible podiatrist. Quick, efficient, skilled, and who views surgery as absolutely the last resort. Except for ingrown toenails. Apparently, diving right in with horrible, horrible tools is the only choice) does this all the time.
That all things consider, my clean, non-infected (if badly swollen — epsom salts are magic) toe was probably one of the least disgusting things she’s had to get right up next to and slice into this week, and think “I cannot imagine being a doctor. Ever.”
I don’t see how they do it. Whether it’s cutting into a person and just ignoring all the blood, pus, and innards or dealing with the thousand god-awful fluids a sick person or child generates…..
Hat’s off to you. It’s a hard, hard, disgusting job. Mike Rowe should have sat down with a doctor and did a show. Except for the part where he did the job, because that’d be unethical. But at least POINT at a doctor and say “This dude handles your poo, to keep you healthy. And that lady? She just removed what looked like a gallon of pus from someone who should have seen the doctor six weeks ago. And that guy? sick people just cough in his face every day.”Report
I got a vasectomy. On Tuesday, I had to provide the sample that ended up proving my sterility.
Fortunately it didn’t affect your writing.Report
Thank you.Report
Sam,
Thanks for this post and the last one. I am (TMI?) considering this procedure, and it’s nice to have a perspective from someone who’s been through ti.
Again, thanks.Report