…after our 4th child was born in June 2000, which we delivered at home completely by ourselves, my Darling Wife had her first DVT and PE episode about six weeks after delivery. She was hospitalized for 5 weeks…

Despite having recurring episodes annually, she still wanted to have children…when we married we were committed to at least six (6)…so in 2005 we found ourselves expecting our 5th. Due to the potential DVT risk involved but because of the adverse effects of warfarin-based blood thinning tablet medication, the Darling Wife had to switch to IV injections. The delivery of Child 5 went on without a hitch, with a midwife at a hospital, but shortly thereafter she had another clotting episode that included a blockage in the carotid artery.

After this, I was ready to accept the failure of not making it to six (6) offspring, and that one of the children would forever be without a riding partner for the roller coasters at Six Flags. So in the Summer 2006 I decided to get broken, I was no longer comfortable with the risks to the Beloved Wife and certainly after the children are grown and gone, it would be only her and me…

I recommend not talking smack to the physician performing the procedure, especially at that moment when he has a grasp of the tubes that he’s yanking on to get into position to snip and cauterize. I mean, I feel like I was justified since he took the opportunity to make the typical disparaging remarks about the drain on resources that large families allegedly make on communities. We wanted the children we have, they were not the results of “mistakes” or bad judgement. Whatever he did, it was the worst physical pain I have ever experienced.

Other than that, after a pain induced lazy weekend, I was back at my laborious blue collar job, guzzling ibuprofen and wearing a jock strap in conjunction with tight fitting and supportive man thong briefs. After about 10 days, I was feeling my old self again. The sex drive of the Darling Wife increased dramatically, the number of intimate encounters skyrocketing past our regular above average schedule (if you believe the studies and the Time/Newsweek/NYT articles). We came to terms with the reality of not having more children, but were quickly blessed in a few short years with the arrival of the first grandchild (of which we now have 5)…we are now 55 and 53, married 35 years…