Well, it's been about 10 days since the procedure, and I'm healing up. The stitches have dissolved, and I've been able to walk around without added support for the first time since the surgery. At the risk of providing too much information, it appears that everything is functioning largely as it were before...though I'm still a bit sore.
I hope that my not-so-great first few days have not put anyone off of the surgery. It's not the sort of thing to be taken lightly, that's for sure...but at some point I think we guys need to think about potential children in terms of how long we're going to be around to be a part of their lives.
I put this off for a long time, primarily because of my concern (echoed by my wife) about the "what if" scenario. What if something happened (death of a spouse, etc...), and I someday remarried. One assumes that any future spouse might want to have kids. At some point, however, I determined that even if something like that happened, it was getting to the point where I couldn't become a father all over again and fulfill the responsibility that goes along with it. I want to be around to see my kids graduate, marry, and maybe even see a couple of grandkids prior to leaving this life. I'm getting old enough these days that I'm starting to see that window close, and finally reached the point where I decided that it was time. So far, I've not looked back on that decision with any regret.
My buddy Fred had some kind things to say about my starting this thread. A lot of it had to do with all the pain I was in from the whole thing, and I don't think that my buddies who'd had it were completely forthcoming about what I was in for. That said, I do also feel like potential fatherhood is one of those things that we guys need to consider.