When some couples feel their family is complete, dad heads to the doctor to get a vasectomy. This way, the couple can continue to enjoy that special alone time without mom and dad having to be on some sort of birth control. It also gives men the chance to be in charge of birth control instead of women — often after years of women being on hormonal birth control.
About 50 million men have had a vasectomy, which rounds out to about 5% of all married men of reproductive age. More than 500,000 men elect to have vasectomies every year in the U.S.
Former pro football player Eric Decker does not plan to be one of those 500,000 men.
Decker, who shares three kids — daughter Vivianne, 8, and sons Eric Jr., 7, and Forrest, 4 — with wife and country singer Jessie James Decker, apparently refuses to get snipped.
“I feel like as of right now, it’s probably a no,” Jessie, 34, told Us Weekly when asked if the couple wants to grow their family.
She revealed that her 35-year-old husband “refuses to go make it permanent” and get a vasectomy.
Even though Jessie claims that she has asked her husband multiple times to go get a vasectomy, he refuses, claiming that the procedure would make him less of a man somehow.
I keep asking him, ‘Go make that appointment’ and he won’t. He just won’t do it,” she explained. “He says it takes, like, his manhood away from him. So he’s just gonna leave it, I guess.”
This is not the first time that Decker has publicly voiced her frustration with her husband over his firm stance on a vasectomy. In January 2022, the former Dancing With The Stars contestant explained to Us Weekly that he would not get on board with even booking an appointment.
“He won’t book it. He will not book it,” Jessie said. “It’s still TBD.”
“Just the idea freaks him out,” she continued. “I also feel like there’s a small part of him that doesn’t want to cut it off permanently because maybe he wants another baby down the road and so that’s what I think is happening.”
To be clear, a vasectomy is a routine medical procedure which stops sperm from leaving the body by closing off the ends of the vas deferens — the tubes that carry sperm. Men still ejaculate normally, but the ejaculate does not contain sperm.
Due to her husband’s unwillingness to bend on the idea of getting a common and simple birth control procedure that thousands of men have done, she has accepted that more kids might be in their future since neither practice any sort of birth control method.
“I mean, you know, if it happens, it’s always a blessing,” she said. “We’re not doing anything to truly prevent that.”
While Jessie may be reconciling with more kids on the way, Eric revealed to Us in January 2022 that he had actually filled out the papers to get the procedure done but is having a hard time pulling the trigger, noting that not being able to release sperm would feel like part of his “power” was being taken away.
“It’s a little power being taken. That’s how I feel,” he said of getting a vasectomy. “I’m a little nervous about it, to be honest.”
Decker told his wife at the time, “You don’t know where life will take you in the next five years … We have amazing kids, so I don’t want a lot of love being taken.”
Though Eric doesn’t feel 100% ready to get a vasectomy, Jessie seems comfortable with stopping at three kids. However, she does wonder if she’d feel any regret as she got older, noting she might get a little “Joanna Gaines” about family planning. Decker is referring to Gaines’ fifth child who she had 8 years after her fourth at the age of 40.
“Three is a great number, but I feel like I might get a little Joanna Gaines feeling later on in my 30s and be like, ‘Shoot, let’s have one more,’” Jessie told Us at the time. “I just don’t know that I’m ready for him to make it so permanent. … We’re going on vacation soon and maybe, you know, [there] might be a drunken night. Who knows?”
