My Husband's Experience Getting a Vasectomy Reversal Through the U.S. Army

The men and women who serve in the United States Armed Forces give up a lot for a noble profession. Service members are often required to work long hours, sometimes thousands of miles away from home, and in hostile conditions. In exchange for their dedication, people who serve in one of the branches of the Armed Forces are entitled to certain benefits. One available benefit that isn't always widely publicized is the opportunity to have elective surgeries done, free of charge.

My husband Bill is a career Army officer. When he was married to his first wife, they decided he should have a vasectomy. They'd had two daughters together and she had a son from her first marriage. Though he was only 29 years old at the time, he thought he was finished having children and assumed that he would stay married to his first wife. Six years after his vasectomy, their marriage ended. Two years after his divorce, Bill met me. The following year, we got married.

Bill is my first husband and I have never had children of my own. I have always wanted to be a mother. I knew Bill had undergone a vasectomy before we got married. Fortunately, Bill was willing to explore having his vasectomy reversed. Months before we tied the knot, Bill visited a urologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to be evaluated for a vasectomy reversal. The doctor approved him for the vasectomy reversal surgery and told him to get on the very long list of men who were waiting to undo what they thought was permanent sterilization.

Bill was taking advantage of a program offered by the military that allows servicemembers to have elective procedures done free of charge. The rationale for the program is that military physicians need to keep all of their skills up to date. They must be able to practice and gain experience in elective procedures like LASIK, certain plastic surgeries, infertility treatments, dental implants, and vasectomy reversals. The one caveat is that the elective procedures must be done when there's enough time and staff to do them and the physicians aren't needed elsewhere. Consequently, there is often a long wait for these types of procedures, particularly since the United States went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Long odds

Bill had his vasectomy in 1993. He visited the Army urologist in February 2002. Vasectomy reversals are typically most successful when they are performed within a couple of years after the vasectomy. When too many years pass between a vasectomy and a vasectomy reversal, the procedure tends to become more complicated. Bill's surgeon told him that because it had been so long since his vasectomy, it was likely that he would need a vasoepididymostomy, or VE, a surgery that is more complicated than a regular vasectomy reversal, the vasovasostomy, or VV. Actually, that turned out to be a lucky break for us, since it put Bill at the top of a long list.

Losing hope

After Bill visited the Army urologist, he started keeping in regular contact with the urology clinic at Walter Reed. This is where our odyssey to get the reversal surgery became frustrating. Bill would call the clinic to check his status and no one would answer. Or when someone did answer, they would tell him to call back in a few months. Bill would leave messages, but no one would return his calls. The receptionists would invariably explain to Bill that the surgeons who performed vasectomy reversals were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and no one knew when they would be back in the area.

My biological clock was ticking very loudly. I started to think about consulting private doctors, but that was cost prohibitive for us. Besides, the surgery would require Bill to take time off from work. It's much easier to get that time off when it's ordered by a military physician.

One night in the late spring of 2004, Bill and I were talking about our quest to have a family. I was feeling very discouraged and said that I thought perhaps the surgery wasn't meant to be. We talked about alternative methods to get me pregnant, but felt just as discouraged about those. At the time, there just wasn't enough money in our budget to explore most of the other reproductive methods that were available to us.

Persistence pays off

The very next evening, which was a Thursday, Bill came home from work in a good mood. After he'd had a chance to relax, he said "By the way, guess who called me?"

I had no clue.

With a broad grin, Bill told me that the urology clinic had called him at work. One of the surgeons had returned from Afghanistan. He would be in the area for a very short time before he took a fellowship. The receptionist explained that the doctor might have time to squeeze in Bill's reversal.

The following Monday, the receptionist at Walter Reed sent Bill an urgent email. Thanks to a cancellation,there was a slot open for Bill's surgery that Wednesday. Bill could have it if he wanted it. He had to report to Walter Reed for some pre-op tests. If all checked out, Bill would be getting his vasectomy reversal in just two days!

The day we waited two years for

Early that Wednesday morning, we arrived at the Same Day Surgery Center at Fort Meade, Maryland. Since Bill has hypertension, a nurse was very careful to make sure that his blood pressure was within acceptable limits to have the surgery that day. Bill was nervous, so his blood pressure was high, but not so high that he wasn't okay to go under the knife.

The nurse told us what would happen to Bill and reassured him that he'd be okay. In the unlikely event that anything did go wrong, he would be taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, the day that Bill had his surgery was a day when traffic would be particularly crazy in the DC area. Ronald Reagan had just died and his body was lying in state. Needless to say, because of that, we were especially hopeful that nothing would go wrong.

When Bill commented how fortunate he felt to be having the surgery, the nurse agreed, She commented that we were there on the surgeon's last day. After he left, it was unknown when there would be another surgeon in the area who could do elective urological procedures. The nurse told us that she was always warned men who wanted to have vasectomies to make sure they were absolutely certain. Vasectomy reversals are expensive operations on a delicate part of the body. A vasectomy is a very minor surgery; it requires local anesthetic and takes only fifteen minutes or so to complete. A reversal, on the other hand, usually takes several hours and has to be done under general anesthetic.

Bill's on his way!

After he changed into a hospital gown, Bill and I waited for the medic to come with the gurney. Bill hugged and kissed me, told me he loved me, and said he had a really good feeling about how things would go. A first class private picked up Bill and took him to the operating room while I watched CNN and read magazines.

I was surprised when a couple of hours later, one of Bill's doctors came out to talk to me. He said that Bill looked "really good" down there and he hadn't needed the more complicated VE surgery. This was good news, since the less complicated procedure gave us a better shot at conception. The surgeon told us that there was an 80-90% chance that Bill would ejaculate sperm and that gave us a shot at being parents.

An hour later, Bill was brought back to where I had been waiting for him. He was settled into a recliner, where he could wait for the anesthetic to wear off enough so that I could drive him home.

The aftermath

Bill got two weeks medical leave so that he could recover from the vasectomy reversal. We were not allowed to have intercourse until six weeks after the surgery, at which point Bill had to go to Walter Reed and drop off a semen sample. The sample would be tested to see whether or not he had ejaculated sperm and what kind of condition his it was in.

Bill healed beautifully after the surgery and had no trouble producing a sample. A couple of days after Bill dropped off a specimen, a doctor from Walter Reed called for him. The doctor was new to Walter Reed and apologized because it was going to take him a few days to get the test results. I gave the doctor Bill's work number, thinking he'd want to speak to Bill personally.

To my surprise, the doctor did call our house again. This time, he had our results. He said, "Your husband is now firing live ammunition! You need to tell him to be careful where he points that thing!"

The doctor raved about how good Bill's sperm looked and that they were swimming well and appeared to be in good condition. The lab counted 90 million sperm per cubic centimeter. Anything over 20 million is considered normal. The doctor went on to warn us that if we wanted to have a baby, now was the time to go for it. Scar tissue could develop and lead us back to infertility.

We tried and we tried, but...

Needless to say, Bill and I have tried hard to make a baby. Unfortunately, I have yet to conceive and at this point it probably won't happen without medical assistance. Still, we have no regrets. Having that surgery allowed Bill to rectify a mistake he'd made under pressure from his first wife. Bill told me that he felt whole again after having the reversal.

We do know of a couple of success stories relating to vasectomy reversals done through the military. One of Bill's former co-workers had his reversal in 2006. He and his wife became parents of a beautiful baby girl in March of this year. Another one of Bill's co-workers had the reversal surgery several years ago. Though his surgery wasn't successful, he and his wife still became parents by availing themselves of other reproductive treatments available through the military. While they did have to pay for the treatments involving his wife, the cost of the procedure was significantly less than it would have otherwise been.

Bill and I would be overjoyed if I ever manage to get pregnant. But we've learned that not having kids together isn't the end of the world. We're happy being with each other, even if we don't have children together. And technically, the surgery was successful, even though I didn't get pregnant.

Advice?

My advice to any service member thinking of having an elective procedure done through the military is to be very persistent. If you get approved for a procedure, be very diligent about keeping in touch with the clinic that offers it. Keep an open mind as to where the procedure will be done. When Bill and I were waiting for his surgery, we were told it was possible we'd have to go to San Antonio, Texas to get it done at Brook Army Medical Center. We were lucky that we could get it done in the DC area. Above all, don't lose hope. Miracles do happen, even in the military.