Exactly What Are They Doing In There?

As I mentioned yesterday, my surgery is on January 11, 2012.

Being the absolute glutton for punishment that I am, I thought I should find out exactly what's going to happen when Dr. Bailey heads into my guts with a knife.

I will be having a laparoscopic tubal ligation. A small incision is made near my belly button and they will have a full view the exterior of my to-remain-vacant-forever baby shack. All of this will be happening under general anaesthesia, by the way. I'm a glutton for punishment, but I'm not a masochist.

So anyway, there's supposed to be another incision above my pubic bone (or near my belly button again, depends on the surgeon) where a whole entire other instrument is inserted to help with the tube-grabbing.

At this point, teeny clamps will be clicked onto each of my fallopian tubes and I will be sewn shut with dissolvable thread. The clamps look like little mouths.

I'm now imagining a gag gift of a bikini or speedo made of this dissolvable thread and am amused....

Anyway, this is considered a permanent procedure. Reversals are expensive, not covered by Health Care, and not always successful. When my GP told me that the chances of conceiving (if I had the clamps removed) were in the range of 30% maximum, I actually said, "Sweet! I have a 170% chance of NOT becoming pregnant then."

Dr. Bailey told me that the surgery will take 8-12 MINUTES. In and out. And as previously noted, the downtime is one day after the surgery. To be honest, that's one of the most appealing parts of this whole thing, the fact that I'm not going to be on my ass for two weeks. A couple of sick days and I'm set.

Here's a video for anyone who'd like to look inside a lady. I hope my uterus has better wallpaper.

The failure rate of this surgery is about 1%. And hey, wikipedia says that having a tubal ligation may reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.

Obviously, as with any surgery, you run the risk of infection, reaction to the anaesthetic, allergic reaction, blood clots, nerve damage, etc. Thankfully, according to one site, these risks are really, really low (fewer than 1 in 100 procedures). I like those odds.

There's also this:

"[L]aparoscopic tubal ligation is about six times safer than driving and two to three times safer than being pregnant."

I am confident that I'll be totally fine.

That said, if anyone wants to send me flowers to increase the rate of my recovery, I will happily accept them.