Did you have the circ conversation before choosing your partner and deciding to have children? - Page 4

[Haselnuss]

First husband, no. After having him threaten to circ a boy against my wishes (baby turned out to be a girl), I wasn't about to be put in that position again. 2nd husband is European and intact, though, so it's moot... plus, all my kids are female, so it's doubly moot.

Sometimes I feel like a waste of an intactivist.

[Poogles0213]

DH and I got together when he was 15 and I was 17, and at the time I was dead-set against ever having kids DH actually talked me into eventually having kids within the first year of us being together and we both decided we wanted to wait until we were much older before TTC (we're still waiting : hoping to start end of this year, maybe).

At the time, I was completely oblivious to the whole circ "issue" and just assumed everyone did it and there must be a good reason (I have 3 younger brothers, all circed, and since I practically did all the child-raising for them, I just assumed circ'd was "normal"). Then I caught baby-fever and started reading all baby-related stuff I could get my hands on. So, of course, I eventually came across MDC and read about circ and what it entails and the "reasons" for doing it, and just couldn't believe so many people don't really understand what it is or why it's completely unnecessary (except in very rare medical cases).

When I approached DH about it, he was opposed at first. A friend of his had a circumcision as an adult due to recurrent infections and other problems, and assumed any intact male would have to deal with those problems (I personally think his friend was probably not really aware of the correct way to care for himself or what is normal for intact penises...either he confused smegma with pus/infections or was suffering long term consequences from a, probably repeatedly, prematurely retracted foreskin). I explained all I had learned and appealed to his logic...and he saw the light. The logic was what really won him over :

[DahliaRW]

I had no idea about circ at all until I was pregnant with my first (and already married). My sis had mentioned circ to me at that point, and I knew I wouldn't do it but wasn't sure what dh thought. On the day we were going to get our "big" u/s (only child we did that with and found out) dh asked if it was a boy what I thought about circ. I said I thought it was unneccesary. He said he agreed and didn't see any point to doing it. SO that was easy. I later researched it a bit and then became a full-fledged intactivist!

[~Boudicca~]

The circumcision issue didn't even come up on my radar until I started frequenting MDC a couple years after I had dd1. And then when we conceived dd2 we talked about it and I was very adamant that it would not be done if we had a boy and dh said he would just go with whatever I wanted. He doesn't have an opinion on it either way.

[hakunangovi]

I have always been really unhappy with my mother's decision to circ, and consequently had brought the subject up with several partners prior to getting married. DW has two intact brothers and three circumcised half brothers and , luckily, was pretty much ambivalent about the issue. At the time that DS was born the circ rate here was about 50%, so at the very first doctors visit I made it clear that if this one was a boy, he was going to keep ALL his parts.

[Bazile]

I voted yes, but that's not entirely accurate. When DH and I first got together, we were in our late teens, and children weren't on the radar. My knowledge of circumcision was my brothers were circ'ed, gym teacher during sex ed telling us that the foreskin is cut off at birth for most boys and has no purpose (she actually compared it to the appendix), and that God had commanded Abraham to circumcise everyone in his family. I assumed that when I had kids, any boys would be circ'ed because that's what you do.
We did discuss it a few months before we got married, and children still weren't on the radar. DH was not circumcised. Though what I know of my MIL, it probably had more to do with finances and not any sort of latent intactivism. DH got it into his head, not from me, that girls don't like uncircumcised penis, and that he needed to get circ'ed. He asked me what I thought, and told him I'd never thought about it. He told me he'd get it done if I wanted him to. I agreed to get back to him. I did a bit of googling and found a site providing Biblical back up to circumcision net being a requirement for Gentile Christians, and a you tube video showing an actual circumcision. Watching that baby cry, I knew that 1) I didn't want DH to have it done just for me, and 2) there was not way I was ever going to do that to a child.
I told this to DH, and sent him the video link. He agreed he didn't really want it done to anyone, and especially not to himself.

[Katielady]

No...neither of us thought about it much before I got pregnant and started reading about it. Thankfully I was able to bring DH on board once I realized how awful circ is, and we were in agreement long before our son was born.

We did discuss a lot of other parenting issues, though, for which I'm very thankful today. I talked with him about wanting to be a SAHM, and he was skeptical at first but warmed up to the idea before we were engaged- for me it was a dealbreaker. And we talked about discipline styles and stuff.

[wild fire child]

We didn't talk about it specifically before moving in together, but we both kind of knew each other's stance. When we got pregnant he decided that he didn't even want to talk about it, if we had a boy I would just get to make all decisions regarding health. He knows I will not back down, but he doesn't want to back down either so he'll just leave it up to me to avoid confrontation.
It does bother me a bit that he's in favor of circ, but as long as it doesn't affect our children or cause arguments between us, I'll leave it be.

[Smokering]

Nope, it never even crossed my mind. I feel very lucky that a) circ isn't routinely done in NZ, so we wouldn't have been offered it at the hospital, b) I married a guy who turned out to be as anti-circ as I am after I gave him the facts, and c) I learned about circ before the in-laws blithely informed us we'd 'have' to circ a boy because the males on their side of the family end to get UTIs (!!!).

Then we had a girl anyway, so.

Knowing what I know now, I couldn't have married DH if he'd been pro-circ. But I like to think I gauged his character and his opinions on other issues pretty well before we got married, so you could say it was an 'educated guess' that he'd be anti-circ. Sort of like I never actually asked him his position on genocide either, but can confidently assume he's agin it! Now if I were to marry again, you bet I'd find out the other person's position. I told my sister to make sure of her boyfriend's position on the matter, so she did and he agrees with her (albeit in a less impassioned way, mixed with a bit of 'what a weird question to ask'... oh well).

[LilMamiBella]

Well I didn't need to since Dh is intact.

[MisaGoat]

No, but my husband is intact so we were in agreement. I don't remember having a conversation about it though.

I do remember early on deciding I wouldn't do it to my sons. I remember my aunt telling me about when her boys had it done and how she cried and felt bad (but still did it and also her second son). I didn't understand why you would do it and I still don't.

I also remember having the conversation about why my husband and 2 previous boyfriends weren't,(in the US I managed to find more men that were intact, go figure). It is interesting the reasons why they weren't one bf's mom said he was born with it why would i cut it off, another was born in europe and my husband wasn't done because his dad had a botched one that needed to be repaired as an adult (don't ask me for details on what happened because that is all I know, I can't really ask my FIL about his penis). My FIL is very much against circ so there really wasn't any conflict about this issue for us.

[eclipse]

I voted other, because I can't remember. I'm pretty sure I said in passing at some point, "Yeah, not gonna do that!" but I can't remember for sure. Dh is circ'd, but it was never an issue for him.

[thismama]

I did not talk about it with my child's father til I was pregnant, at that time I was content to leave the decision to him and had no idea, nor did I care, either way. Thankfully he was intact and anti-circ, and taught me about the issue, then I did some reading on my own etc. I can easily see how mamas might not know it matters until they are pregnant.

[Triciabn]

By "having a conversation"...you mean I told him there wasn't a chance in hell that I would ever circ another baby of mine (already had one son when I got married)....then : "yes we had a conversation".
I know I clued him in.... and I don't recall hearing or caring what he said...so he must have nodded out of fear of hearing a tirade.
Tricia

[Marsupialmom]

I marked but no but that is only 1/2 true......

I have been married twice.

With my first marriage it was something that never crossed my mind. I really didn't know what it was until I had my son. My mom told me to not do it with a plasti-bel if it was a boy. I asked my doctor if it was necessary and he said no. So it wasn't done.

It wasn't until later did I learn all about circ and why it would NOT happen to my child.

I did discuss it with my second husband. He was on board with my decission but didn't become against it until he learned a little more.

[Storm Bride]

I haven't read anything but the first question.

There was never a conversation with my ex. When I was pregnant with ds1, we went to a prenatal class. They were showing a bunch of pictures of various typical newborn features ("baby zits", stork bites, etc.), including an intact and circ'd penis. I looked at the circ'd penis, and said "someone tries to do that to my baby, and they'll have to kill me first". I have no idea if he agreed or not, but he never argued.

When I got together with dh, I was pretty sure I couldn't have any more children. We did discuss circ briefly, though. I told him that ds1 was intact, and that no child of mine would ever be circ'd. He thinks I'm way over the top about it, but I don't care - he didn't try to fight me on it.

[tpintsch]

I guess I'm in the minority with my yes answer. My intact son was 2 when I met DH. I researched the circ issue when I was pregnant with him and came to the conclusion that I would NOT being having my son cut. When DH and I were dating and things started getting serious I told him that I would never have any of my sons circumsized and that if he wanted to eventually have children with me he would have to agree. He was quite suprised about it, but agreed.

[Ceinwen]

No, both our girls were surprises!

However, both my brothers & my dad are intact - and so is dh.

The circ discussion never came up, because it's not common AT ALL in my circle of friends & family.

I'm in Canada FWIW.

[mamabens]

No we didn't have the discussion beforehand. HOnestly we had 2 kids before I ever researched it enough to know I wouldn't do that to my child. Before, I jsut thought it was what you did. I discussed it with DH & at first he said he definitely wanted it done, but after showing him my research & telling him what I found he's definitely against it now. Why disfigure a perfect little boy?

[riverscout]

I voted "yes" because we did talk about it when we were dating. I think I would have been pretty clueless about the issue since I was only 17 when we met and it was the 80s when circ was the norm and the internet was still a dream, but I had some cool neighbors who had a little boy and left him intact. I'm not certain, but I really think she must have been a Mothering subscriber...no circ, extended breastfeeding, cloth diapering, natural childbirthing, etc all back when it wasn't so cool.

Anyway, I was very close with the family and helped with and babysat the boy a lot basically from birth so it just seemed very normal and natural to me that he was intact. Having seen him, I could never imagine circ'ing my own son. My then bf now dh knew the little boy too. We decided we would never circ our son if we ever had one. It just took us another 20 years to actually one.