Snipped

When John and I started dating, we knew we wanted two children. When I was pregnant with Nathan, we decided that if we did not feel like we wanted a third child by the time John was about to turn 30, we were done. John turns 30 in August and we feel very done. I know this kind of decision isn't for everyone, but we made the choice to make it permanent. We feel like we've moved out of the "baby stage" and into the "raising stage". Another factor is that my body tries to bleed to death when I give birth (I can thank my Irish heritage for that). Another birth was really not in the cards for me. So, John was very brave this morning and had the procedure done.

Warning: If you're squeamish, you might not want to read this, although I will try to keep it pretty basic.

What is normally a one numbing shot, 20 minute procedure took nearly an hour and almost couldn't be completed. Apparently what gets cut is typically in the front and is easy to get to. For John, it was in the back and took some searching. Additionally, the main nerve was wrapped around things (this is unusual), which made the numbing shots not work. John was given 12 (two directly into the nerve itself) shots to attempt to numb the area. After 12 shots, John was still yelling out in pain and the doctor was considering giving him an epidural. Thankfully, he couldn't be heard out in the waiting room. The doctor said that it was the most difficult one he'd ever done on a willing patient. John looked a tad shell shocked after it was all said and done, but he was able to walk out of the hospital on his own. I still say natural childbirth is worse, but I do feel bad for him!

He seems to be doing fine and we plan to rest at home this weekend. When we scheduled the appointment, we didn't realize that it was Father's Day weekend. That made us laugh. He'll be taking things pretty slow for the next week (but does plan to go back to work on Monday) and then he has a follow-up to make sure that everything is healing correctly. So that's our fun Father's Day weekend here at the Minthorne house! I'm sure John would appreciate prayer for good healing, especially since things ended up being much more rough than we had anticipated.