3D4Medical.com/Getty Images In a vasectomy, surgeons cut the "sperm superhighway" -- the vas deferens. See more surgery images.

Women's choices for birth control are vast. They can choose from pills, patches, shots and IUDs, to name a few. But, aside from the condom, the ­vasectomy is the closest thing modern medicine has come to an effective male birth control option. G­etting a vasectomy is like a woman receiving a lifetime supply of birth control pills -- without the side effects -- or having her tubes tied, which is a much more complicated procedure than a vasectomy.

A vasectomy is a simple procedure. Surgeons cut the vas deferens, which are the two tubes that transport sperm from the testicles to the penis. With these two quick slices, a man's semen is sperm-free, and he can enjoy permanent birth control.

Vasectomies are considered a permanent form of birth control, but some men do opt to reverse them. This is accomplished with a procedure known as a vasovasostomy. Vasovasostomies aren't new. In fact, they've been around for more than 100 years, with the first successful operation reported in 1919 [source: eMedicine]. In the United States, approximately 600,000 men have vasectomies every year, and 5 percent of those go back for a vasovasostomy [source: eMedicineHealth]. The reasons behind this change of heart vary, but it's commonly because of remarriage, the death of a child, or improvement in financial situation. Very rarely, doctors will perform a vasovasostomy to ease the pain from complications of a vasectomy.

Reversal is definitely a tempting option, but it's not always successful. One effect of a vasectomy is that the body can actually cease to recognize its own sperm and can develop antibodies to it. If this has occurred, chances are low that a vasectomy reversal will enable a man to impregnate his partner. Another factor is how long someone waits to change his mind. Even if the vasovasostomy does result in a successful restoration of the "sperm superhighway," the chance of pregnancy is lower than it was before the vasectomy. For example, if a man opts for a vasovasostomy three years after a vasectomy, there's a 97 percent chance that his vas deferens will be successfully reopened. However, his chance of getting his partner pregnant is not so impressive -- only 76 percent. And that's the best-case scenario. The longer the span of time between the vasectomy and the reversal, the less chance that reversal will work. Someone who waits 15 years or more to reverse a vasectomy has about a 71 percent chance of rebuilding his vas deferens and a mere 30 percent chance of actually getting his partner pregnant [source: eMedicineHealth].

On the next page, we'll learn the details of the vasovasostomy procedure.­­­

Video Gallery: Surgery Operations are now being filmed and shown online in their entirety on ORLive.com, a new surgical webcast. See how online brain surgeries work in this news video from Reuters. Watch this video showing how the da Vinci Robotic Surgical System allows doctors to perform bypass surgery without opening the chest cavity and using only four incisions in the chest.