©Richard Baker 2016. All rights reserved.

Procreate pro·cre·ate (prō’krē-āt’) v. pro·cre·at·ed, pro·cre·at·ing, pro·cre·ates. To beget and conceive offspring; to reproduce. To produce or create; originate.

In August one hot summer and again on a spring day in 1998, we twice became parents to two wonderfully perfect little babies and for 21 years as a dad, I would hold and help feed them; then get them to school and help them read; dry their tears; give them hugs; take them on holidays and on to university.

But in about 7 hours this man will cross the parental chasm – from procreator, to sterile male. Nestled below the bladder, my prostate has been working all this time like a well-watered pump house but recently it has slowed down, enlarged slightly and squeezed bits of me that aren’t supposed to be squeezed.

GreenLight Prostatectomy is now available on the NHS as day surgery to 14,000 men a year with enlarged prostates, thus saving the government £3m: Less bed time, fewer complications and shorter periods off work. One signs the consent, ingests the chemicals and wakes up 90mins later feeling thirsty and disorientated.

My time comes tonight and while I am blinking up at a flickering neon light, the surgeon will probably be at the family table sharing events of the day. Yesterday, he removed someone’s kidney via keyhole (in the near future he’ll do so robotically, he tells me) but by six, he will be pointing a laser at the part of my prostate nearest to the narrowed urethra. The area of blasted tissue will until then be guaranteeing fertility, producing during a lifetime healthy amounts of semen. This abruptly ceases.

I’ve done my bit for humanity but this is the last afternoon as a fully functioning Homo sapiens with the ability to add his genes to Olympic pool. My primeval pieces are to be irreversibly altered and in the time of writing these paragraphs, another hour has passed before I am gelded for good.