Special Delivery, Handle With Care

Collect the specimen by masturbation directly into the covered container that you were given at the time of surgery and take specimen with the requisition you were given to the appropriate laboratory as instructed by the nurse.

I believe it has been amply demonstrated that we DadCentrists are more than willing, giddy even, to write about the joys and sorrows of that often winced-at bit of scrotal surgery known as the vasectomy. Between Jason’s public service announcement, the floating head video with the dudes from DadLabs and DadWagon, and my own post-op conversation with my balls, we’ve spilled a fair amount of blog ink covering the topic. We’ve touched upon the decision making process, the actual procedure, and the pain and discomfort experienced in the days following surgery. There is, however, one aspect of vasectomy that we have yet to discuss: the follow-up.

You probably know this already, but for those of you who don’t, a vasectomy does not immediately render a man sterile. In fact, the vasectomized gentleman remains quite viable for up to several months, so in order to be sure that none of your beloved’s eggs become unwittingly fertilized, it is necessary to have your sperm count checked to be sure that it has dropped off as expected. That way, you'll know that you've arrived safely in the recreational zone.

Of course, as you can see from those instructions up there in italics, the process of acquiring a sample is itself recreational. 

A specimen must be taken into the laboratory after 20 to 25 ejaculations and not earlier than three months after surgery.
 
Perhaps I’m a disorganized slob of a human being, but I don’t track my own ejaculations all that closely. You might say that the only ejaculation log I keep is the one in my pants.  Whether it was this disorganization or the overall busyness of life or just sheer laziness, I can’t say, but for whatever reason, I kept putting off going in for my follow-up. 

“When are you gonna get your spooge checked?” my wife kept asking. And asking. And asking. It occurred to me that perhaps she was trying to tell me something.

Finally, last week, I decided I wouldn’t put it off any longer. After all, I could only stand to benefit, right? The thing is though, I was a tad bit confused by their instructions:

Collect the specimen via masturbation...

No, not that part. No confusion there

...directly into the covered container...

No, I think I can handle that part as well. Let’s skip ahead.

...take specimen with the requisition you were given to the appropriate laboratory...

That right there, see? They make it sound like they intend for you to get your sampling rocks off somewhere outside of the lab facility, then bring it to them. They even provided me with containers with which to do so. So why the confusion? Because it just seemed weird to be asked to transport semen, okay? And also because in every movie and television episode that I’ve ever seen where a dude had to produce a sperm sample, they typically depict said dude going to a lab where he’s shown to a private room, lock on the door, porno mags tucked away in a drawer. Close the door, lock it, cut to the next scene.

So my confusion lie not in the how of the process, but the where.

So I decided I would call the lab and verify. But then I found myself wondering, how exactly is the best way to articulate the question of where one should pleasure themselves for clinical purposes?

Thankfully I didn’t have to resort to any of these when I called because as soon as I said “sperm count”, the lady on the other end made it explicitly clear that I was to bring the sample to them. You don’t have to jerk at home, but you can’t jerk here. I’m guessing they’ve gotten that question before.  

Now the point where I arrive at the lab with my sample in tow is where this story gets a little bit weird. This encounter with the medical establishment is already a tad bit awkward, but believe me when I tell you that there are ways for the folks within that establishment to make it even more so. 

I walked in the front door of the lab to find myself in a completely empty waiting room. The only person in sight was a little old lady sitting behind the receptionist desk.

“May I help you?” she asked.

I told her I was there to drop off my sample, which I had clutched in one hand within the confines of a grocery bag. The sample container and the plastic bag that the doctor’s office had provided me after surgery were both transparent vessels, and it seemed, I don’t know, impolite to go out into the world carrying a semen sample in clear view. Hence the grocery bag which I now held in my fist, which for some reason I didn’t want to hand over to this woman. It felt wrong to hand semen over to a little old lady. Dirty and wrong. 

So I handed over the lab orders first. Insurance card. Driver’s license. I would stall her with administrative tasks until someone else arrived, which they did in short order, a young guy in scrubs who appeared to be some kind of lab tech, someone to whom it was appropriate to hand containers of semen.

“Here!” I said, thrusting the grocery bag over the counter in his direction. He eyed it a bit suspiciously. Maybe he thought I had brought him some tomatoes.

He started to open the bag, and while doing so, he asked if I had written my name on the sample. My name? The instructions didn’t say anything about writing my name. Why would I do that? He handed the bag back to me along with a marker. I pulled out the top of the clear plastic bag, careful to keep the actual sample container hidden in the grocery bag, and wrote my name on it. And while I was doing this, the little old lady asked a question that was entirely unrelated to my insurance.

“Do you have any family in Luling, Texas?”

Uh, how’s that?

She repeated herself. Then she named off several other small Texas towns, asking if I have family in any of them. And when I told her no, she sighed the sigh of the disappointed elderly and said, “I thought I’d found a relative.” Uh-huh. Because this would be such a wonderful setting for a family reunion. 

I handed the bag back to the lab tech, who took one look at it and said, “No, I need you to write your name on the actual specimen container.” He ripped open the plastic bag and handed the little sample jar over to me along with the marker. And as I was writing my name for the second time, the lady asked me, “Is your family, by chance, originally from Tennessee?” You’re a weird little old lady, lady. And no, they’re not, but even if they were, I would say no because I’m not interested in being related to you. 

I handed the container back to the lab tech who popped it into a fresh clear plastic bag. But instead of whisking it straightaway to the back for examination, he held the bag up to eye level and took a good hard look at the sample within. I’m not sure what he was looking for, but he was definitely probing for something, assessing for various qualities within that translucent fluid that my untrained eyes simply could not detect. 

I realized then that not only was he staring at my semen, but so was the old lady. A minute ago, she had been taking down my insurance information and asking about my lineage, but now she, along with her coworker, seemed intent on committing the sight of my semen sample to memory. Maybe she was looking for relatives.

This moment went on for a hundred years inside the span of maybe a few seconds. Finally, the old lady tore her gaze away from my load and said, “Okay, that’s all we need.”

I booked it the hell out of there, relieved to have that delivery made. And just think, I get to repeat it all in another month.