Vasectomy Reversal Series Part 5: Reversal Day

The time was finally here for Jason to move forward with the vasectomy reversal. I don’t think the weight of what God was doing hit full force until we were sitting in the waiting room. Months of planning, orchestrating schedules, and traveling thousands of miles away from home all funneled into that moment. I prayed boldly over Jason and Dr. Wilson and felt ease.

Thankfully, the Vasectomy Reversal Facebook group I mentioned previously in this series prepared me for what was to come. Many patients had noted how incredibly talented Dr. Wilson is while also referencing how quickly he speaks; they weren’t wrong! Reading the protocols, procedures, and other information on the website made following the dialogue much easier. I will also add that my family is from New York, and we speak/listen at a very fast pace - and even I was having trouble following his speed. It was quite impressive! But all in all he provided opportunities for us to ask questions and we went into the procedure confident.

The nice thing about Dr. Wilson is that God called him to do these reversal surgeries and he opened a practice that had it’s own in house operating room; that’s one way he is able to keep the costs lower. If you missed the previous blogs, most reversals are around $10,000 and he only charges $1,900 - hence our trip to Oklahoma! He also schedules 3 procedures per day, meaning you are the only patients in the building during the time of the reversal, making this experience feel more intimate than if it were at a local hospital building - and we really appreciated that.

When it was time for Jason to go back and get his procedure started, the room was right next to the consultation room (where he led us after we checked in).  This allowed me to feel like I was close to Jason - even though there was a wall between us. I could still hear their conversations.  Dr. Wilson was great at sharing what he was about to do with Jason and even initiated some small talk - which, might I add, was much slower paced than our initial breakdown of the procedure!

I brought my laptop to the waiting room along with a backpack filled with snacks in case I got hungry - I didn’t get hungry…

I worked on writing posts and blogs while the surgery went on. Dr. Wilson told us prior to starting that it would take around an hour and 30 minutes - which is much longer than the vasectomy procedure.  Around the 30 minute mark of his procedure, Dr. Wilson called me back into the operating room, pulled up a chair for me and allowed me to hang out with Jason and watch the procedure. It was so dang cool to see!

Jason had a local numbing agent, so he was wide awake and with it during the procedure. Dr. Wilson had made it to the part of the reversal where he needed to check and see the viability of the sperm in each testicle. I hung out with Jason as Dr. Wilson looked through his microscope ever so meticulously.  Once he was finished with that portion of his analysis, he let us know that Jason’s percentage of sperm to return was 87% (which is a great statistic). He then let us know that the sperm on the right side looked wonderful with heads and tails, but the sperm on the left side only had heads (aka no motility). He mentioned not knowing why he sees this in his patients sometimes, but it will typically resolve. As Jason and I later processed the findings, we realized that he keeps his cell phone in his left pocket.  We had heard that cell phones and other devices could cause issues with fertility - and now we had all the proof we needed!  Jason made a mental note not to keep his cell phone on his body any longer.

As Dr. Wilson continued the procedure, I was able to watch him delicately connect the vas deferents together. A part of me felt so emotional as I was literally witnessing God’s redemption in our life being pieced together.  Our journey to a reversal was nothing short of a God thing, and to be able to experience this huge moment in our lives together was nothing short of incredible. I’m sure Jason didn’t have the same attachment to the moment as I did - I mean, he did have a different perspective being the one who underwent the surgery - so we’ll just go with my story for the record.

Jason and I were mindful to not initiate conversation with Dr. Wilson - as we didn’t want to break his focus, but many times Dr. Wilson would initiate conversation with us and we’d joyfully chime in!  He is a man of God and shared stories of God’s goodness with us and we connected over stories of missionaries - Hudson Taylor specifically. It’s so funny how God ties so many different little moments together to create special experiences.

Jason’s reversal took around 2 hours to complete from start to finish and was complication free, praise God. After getting cleaned up and dressed, Dr. Wilson went over aftercare instructions and allowed us another opportunity to ask questions.  The entire process was easy to follow and he sent us home with a script for meds and a list of things to avoid doing as well as a list of things to keep an eye out for with his personal cell phone number attached.

We left the clinic, grabbed the meds from the pharmacy next door and headed back to our Air BNB to rest. And so starts the next chapter of our lives - trusting God with our lives and our family size.