Well, I've been lurking around these boards and have debated on whether or not to post here. I have decided to share our story also, so that hopefully it may sway someone to not circ thier son.
Here come the tears. My appologies in advance for this will be long, and hopefully cathartic.
Like Flipfish I KNEW that circ wasn't necessary. I did the research, I spent close to a month trying to convince DH it wasn't necessary. In the end we decided to wait and see how we felt about it after DS was born.
DS was born 4 weeks early by emergency c-section, and the last thing on our minds was whether or not we would circ at that point. Soon after we got home for the hospital we started talking about circ'ing again. My DH told me that he wanted DS to "look like him" and I used the arguement that if we had a daughter and she was small chested would we pay for a boob job for her so she looked like me? This didn't work. It is the most ironic thing that DH asked his mother her opinion about the issue and she informed my DH that his father is INTACT!!! So the issue of our DS looking like DH went out the window....but MIL informed DH that she wished FIL was circed because she suffered from reccurent yeast infections 'because' of FIL foreskin
:
Well when I heard that theory I quickly reassured DH that my mother had also suffered from chronic yeast infections and my father is circ'd, so that ruined that arguement also.
SO after reading all the information and deciding it was not medically necessary and that "looking like" daddy wasn't a valid reason to circ, we decided the the only thing standing in our way was the social "issues". The locker-room society we supposedly live in. When we went to the appointment for the circ we were still not 100% convinced it needed to be done. Once we got to the pedi's office he asked if we were in 100% agreement on doing the circ and we both just looked at each other. The pedi, sensing our vulnerability jumped at the chance to inform us on the rates of circ in our area (which is supposedly very high) and how "different" our child would be. He also delved into a great "history lesson" on the supposed reasons behind circ...dating all the way back to Mesopotamia, and how the soldiers who were sent to war struggled with their foreskins getting infected and getting sand under them, and having to have them circ'd later in life. Now, to this day, I kick my self (HARD) for not asking what this all had to do with our childs foreskin, but in my hormone induced baby blues and new mommy jitters, and with DH's leaning towards circ to begin with we let that man cut our childs body.
: After all we didn't want our child to suffer emotional damage from being teased for not being "like others".
He was 2 weeks old.
Skip ahead one week, DS's poor penis seemed to be healing well. My mother was in for a visit. On the 2nd day she was here we found a rash with some "pimples" in is on his groin area. I took him to the Pedi the next day, since my mom who worked in the medical field for 20+ years said it looked like Staph. When I went into the Pedi's office and told him it looked like staph he laughed and said "no, thats just normal baby skin 'stuff'". I believed him, and took our baby home. The rash seemed to come and go, over the next few days but when 2 pimples formed; one directly where the foreskin was snipped during circ and one on the right side of DS's scrotum I took him back to the Pedi and told him I was concerned that it had to do with the circ. The pedi laughed again and said, "no, I still think its just baby skin 'stuff', but here is some cream to put on any other sores that come up". Those 2 sores went away fairly quickly with the cream, and only one more sore popped up, I quickly applied the cream and it went away...
Skip ahead another week. My mother left to go back home, and DS is slowly becoming grumpier and grumpier. It got so bad that I had to call DH to come home from work before I lost my mind. That was a friday, he left work early came home and took DS from me so I could nap. He also stayed with DS on the couch so I could sleep in the bed for the first time in a week. That Saturday morning at around 4am I woke up to my son wailing, like someone was beating him. I rushed out to the living room to find my DH trying to comfort him, we fed him, we rocked and shushed, fed him again, did everythign we knew to do and nothing seemed to help.
We finally took him to the emergency room after his Pedi's office said they wouldn't be able to see him until after 'lunch'.
: At the emergency room we were told we had a colicky child and that we would just have to "ride it out". We went home, after they gave DS a dose of Ibuprofen. DS seemed to feel some better for a couple hours. That night we all slept on the couch DH and I taking turns holding DS while he cried and whimpered. At 11:30 I took DS to feed him, and when I touched his body he felt like he was on fire. He would hardly eat. I took his temp and it was 101. We rushed back to te ER, the whole drive DS was groaning except for when he stopped..once for a couple seconds, I was terrified he had died. I wiggled him in his car seat and he started groaning again. When we got back to the ER they told us that he was having trouble breathing, and hooked him up to
Oxygen. They also did a spinal tap, and a cat scan, tons of blood work, every test you could possibly think of to find out what was wrong. They started him on a couple different antibiotics to help fight any possible infection. Needless to say DH and I were terrified. We were admitted to the Childrens hospital early the next morning 9/11/2005.
After being admitted to CH DS took a turn for the worse. They did another spinal tap to rule out menengitis, it wasn't. They also put a cpap on DS as his breathing was deteriorating rapidly. He was weak and his loud and terrified cries had turned to slow whimpers. They took DS to test for intestinal blockages, and when they started the test DS took yet another turn for the worse and stopped breathing. DH and I were sent to get something to eat (going on 48 hours with no food), so we had no idea until we got back that they had intubated DS and 'chemically paralyzed' him so that he couldn't pull the breathing tube out. A machine was breathing for my precious son. On his cheek was one lone tear, his first tear ever. I lost it emotionally, the nurses had to calm me down. I just kept saying "he's crying, look!" For a couple days we were at a stand still as to what was wrong with him, not relating the 'staph like sores' at all since the Pedi had said thats wasn't what it was....so we just continued DS on several IV antibiotics and supported his weak little body as best we could.
To somewhat quickly finish off a much longer story, I will say that we found out my DS had MRSA in an abscess in his abdomen, that was most likely caused by his circ. We had to sign consents to have a surgeon open up his belly button and core out any 'puss' and infection because the infection was so large (covered about 1/3 of the surface area of his abdomen) his body probably would have never healed on its own otherwise. After the surgery DS stabalized and a couple days later was on the road to recovering. And after 12 long days in the hospital we brough him home, again, victorious and exhausted.
Needless to say I regret everyday having my son circ'd. I honestly believe with all my heart that if we hadn't done it he never would have gotten the staph infection and been on antibiotics for a month, and almost had to have a blood transfusion, and almost died
. My DH is not 100% convinced that it was the circ, but has promised that with any future children we will not circ. because I now feel so strongly about it. I just hate that we had to go through so much to realize that it was never meant to cut a poor innocent child.
: It was NOT our body to decide what to do with, and we almost lost our child and our child almost lost his future because we were too chicken to stand up for what we KNEW was the right thing to do!
Please, anyone who reads this and is contemplating circing their child, please please don't. It's not worth the possible pain and suffering and you will always kick yourself if something horrible happens to you like it did to us.
I thank God everyday that my son is alive and pray that someday DS will forgive me for not doing what I believed to be the 'best' for him, which would have been not to do anything at all.