I ran into an old friend yesterday, who has a DS not much older than mine. We used the same midwife when we were pregnant (the practice has one OB & one midwife), and got to chatting about a few things. She randomly asked me if the OB did my sons circ, and I told her that we didn't circumcise him. She looked surprised, and then was like "oh, I just wondered because we used her for DS's circ and never had any problems, but I know two people who had to have their sons circ'd a second time after having them done by her".
I was caught off guard (it would have been hard either way, since I knew she recently had her DS circ'd), and didn't say much of anything. I'm generally pretty vocal about circ (in a nice, informative way), but it was so awkward and I didn't know what a good/normal response to that would have been?
It also reminded me of a conversation with DH's cousin. She had her newborn son over to my in laws, and at one point started talking about his circ (all while I'm feeling like I'm going to be sick). She kept using the word "traumatic" to describe it and saying how awful it was for him. I thought that maybe she only had it done because her DH had pushed for it, so I asked if she had wanted to have him circ'd. Her response was "of course, that's what everyone does!". I was nice about it, but very quick to tell her that wasn't true and gave her some statistics. I told her we weren't circ'ing our son (I was pregnant at the time), and she looked at me like I was completely insane. She kept asking "so wait, you're never getting it done?? You're not just waiting until he's a bit older or something? Wow, I've never know anyone who's not circ'd their son!".
It was also surprising to me, because DH's cousin and the friend that I mentioned are pretty crunchy. They both had water births and strongly believe in natural birth, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc., yet they both acted very surprised that we didn't circ. I mean, DH's cousin acted like she had never even heard of such a thing.
Are you ever surprised at the people who choose to circ and the ones that don't?
Anyhow, thanks for listening and sorry this turned out to be so long!
I was caught off guard (it would have been hard either way, since I knew she recently had her DS circ'd), and didn't say much of anything. I'm generally pretty vocal about circ (in a nice, informative way), but it was so awkward and I didn't know what a good/normal response to that would have been?
It also reminded me of a conversation with DH's cousin. She had her newborn son over to my in laws, and at one point started talking about his circ (all while I'm feeling like I'm going to be sick). She kept using the word "traumatic" to describe it and saying how awful it was for him. I thought that maybe she only had it done because her DH had pushed for it, so I asked if she had wanted to have him circ'd. Her response was "of course, that's what everyone does!". I was nice about it, but very quick to tell her that wasn't true and gave her some statistics. I told her we weren't circ'ing our son (I was pregnant at the time), and she looked at me like I was completely insane. She kept asking "so wait, you're never getting it done?? You're not just waiting until he's a bit older or something? Wow, I've never know anyone who's not circ'd their son!".
It was also surprising to me, because DH's cousin and the friend that I mentioned are pretty crunchy. They both had water births and strongly believe in natural birth, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc., yet they both acted very surprised that we didn't circ. I mean, DH's cousin acted like she had never even heard of such a thing.
Are you ever surprised at the people who choose to circ and the ones that don't?
Anyhow, thanks for listening and sorry this turned out to be so long!
