Vasectomy Reversal Series Part 3: Booking + Scheduling Our Trip
I spent hours mapping out a detailed family road trip to Oklahoma. Mapped out fun stops to take from Florida, experiences and more - all for Jason to say “let’s fly without the kids.”
Fly without the kids?! We hadn’t been on a plane since pre-2020 and I had zero desire to get on another one. I immediately went to the Facebook group and looked into something I hadn’t previously considered: post surgery travel. Which way would be better for Jason to make it home. Spoiler alert, it was flying. Driving 16+ hours wouldn’t feel good and would likely lead to additional unnecessary swelling. So flying it was.
Next, we had to officially book the appointment. I had the window up and I submitted our payment information for the deposit and as soon as I clicked submit it said “appointment no longer available”. I was devastated. I just spent all this time and effort lining up schedules for the kids, work, travel etc and it didn’t look promising. I called the Oklahoma office and the receptionist informed me that someone else has booked just before I did, taking the last appoint available. I could check back next week when more appointments opened up. There I was, the planning queen stuck in limbo.
I was able to sign up for the waiting list and reserve a spot there in hopes that we would get an appointment within the time slot we had available for traveling & recovery with our schedules. For those who don’t know, recovery is 2 -3 weeks for men with more physically intense jobs.
As we went into the weekend, I waited and prayed that God would work it out and I gave my planning anxieties to Him.
Within a few days, we received an email - Jason’s procedure has been booked for TWO WEEKS earlier than we anticipated. Someone must have cancelled their reversal and we filled in their spot. Scheduling wise, this was even better than I could have imagined as we had a vacation planned a couple weeks after Jason’s reversal and he couldn’t get in the water for at least 2 weeks post op. Now we were in the clear for plenty of rest time, but has to navigate the obstacle of child care for an extended period of time.
You see, 3 days before we had to leave, we had already booked our kid free trip to Discovery Cove for our anniversary. The week prior to that I had the opportunity to go to a week long aquaponics class that was also kid free… and now, this! Navigating child care was key. Thankfully, we have a really great community and our friends and family stepped up to make all of our trips/classes happen. Don’t sleep on opportunities to build community - it comes in handy and is so helpful! We aren’t meant to do this all on our own!
It was finally time to book our flights and going into it Jason had one request… he wanted to fly first class. I was against it at first for the principle of saving money, but he insisted - so we booked it. Looking back this was actually a great choice - especially for our returning flight post surgery. I found after reading testimonials from the Facebook Group that the men appreciate the extra space to stretch out on the way home. Fair enough!
Flights were booked, then the AirBNB. At this point I thought it would be a good idea to reach out to my Instagram friend, Kacy Tucker, to see what we should do while we were in Oklahoma and she sent over the best suggestions along with an invite to her homestead. My gosh, isn’t the internet so dang cool? We had never met in person before, but we had worked together on the Homestead Collective and kept in touch. Now, we’d head to Oklahoma for the procedure and have familiar faces to hang out with while we are there. Don’t sleep on the power of building community, my friends!