the secret vasectomy

I came across some idiotic prose, indicative for what passes as entertainment or "good essay" on the tubes these days. It made it in the "best of craigslist" and collected about 827 votes on craigslist. And it reminded me of a story I lived.

Supposedly, this dude started dating right after his vasectomy and then, even though he’s been using protection, his date told him he’s a father.

My own story is only slightly different. Not long ago, after a close relative had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer I was a quite distressed. My girlfriend decided, just like in that Beatles song, that she’s going away because I’m bringing her down.

I had enough real drama in my life at that time and had my fix of fake drama in a theatre group so I let her go. My relative had lost control of bowel etc and since theirs was a perfunctory marriage, I had to help with diaper changes. As you might imagine, I was not at my most cheerful.

Our relationship was mostly sexual. When I had stopped asking her out, prior to our break-up, she kept visiting me for some safe “quality time” together. I certainly enjoyed that part, but I also felt a bit guilty, as I was a few years older than her – about four, if I’m not mistaken. I could not help feeling responsible. (In another coincidence, reddit has a sad story with the same age differential, though unlike mine, in that story the girl is underage.)

Four or five months later, I was surprised when she contacted me to tell me that she is pregnant. I never asked her if she thought I’m the father, as I reasoned that since she broke up with me, that would be the only reason why she’d feel she needs to let me know. Though I was quite sure that she was not really pregnant but she simply wanted me back or she expected me to have gone after her, we went and got 2 pregnancy test kits. To my dismay, they both turned positive. I asked her if she had unprotected sex with her new boyfriend and that turned out to be a positive as well.

She seemed surprised at my dismay and asked me if I was shooting blanks and if not, why do I find it so hard to believe; I explained to her that I’ve never left someone pregnant before and was quite unsettled. I then asked her what does she want to do and she responded asking me what do I want. I insisted that what I want was completely irrelevant and she eventually told me that she wants to get rid of the pregnancy. She also told me to leave quickly (this happened at her place) because her parents will be coming home soon.

It seems that her father was strict and had forbidden her to keep seeing me and maybe that’s why she broke up with me. I had no way of knowing that for sure, but in that case, she may have gotten pregnant as a way to move out of her parents’ place, or simply as an act of defiance against her father. Either way, I was not prepared to raise someone else’s child and besides, this was a really bad time for me. She wanted me to go with her to the clinic to get an abortion. I told her that I will if that’s what she wants to do, but there is also a pill she can take that will cause a “chemical abortion”, eliminating the need to go to the clinic. As a former sex ed counsellor, I am always surprised to find out that most women do not know about RU486 (mifepristone / misoprostol).

I left as she was becoming very insistent that she does not want her parents to find me there. Later on, she told me that her mother got her the pill, she took it and she bled significantly. We’ve met many year later but we have not talked about it. I wish she had told me that I was not the father and why did she have to contact me as opposed to “the other guy” whom she admitted seeing and having unprotected sex with, but she did not.

What do you think?

Sources / More info: reddit-v, boc, 18yo-14, flickr, abortion, wiki-ru486, yt-vasectomy, yt-ticket

Cracanel, fumei, fomei, attachement, copii, children, bridezilla, marriage, belong, belonging, beatles, ticket to ride, ticket 2 ride, ticket2ride