From a mother to her son.

Well it's been awhile. But I decided to do this entry on a touchy topic, in which every one has their own opinions and I guess their own choice.

So here it goes, why I chose NOT to circumcise my son.

I had been going back and forth with this the whole time I was pregnant. I talked to my husband, other moms, my mom, my husbands mom, my sister in laws. Everyone you could think of, oh and the doctor(at the time, I had so many doctors my head was spinning). Finally by the time I was like 28 weeks I had decided to just go ahead and do it. His dad is, it's what you see in Health class, blah blah blah. 

So we had a big move coming, being military you generally have lots of those. Once we moved and I changed doctors yet again, and I decided after my first round with military doctors, I didn't want it. I decided to go to a Birthing Center. I would have delivered in a tub, with a midwife and my mom and husband by my side, if it wasn't for Jakey's change of plans. Meconium in my amniotic fluid. No water birth, no birthing center. Last minute mad dash to find a hospital to take me. 

Turns out fate knows exactly what she's doing. Jakey had to be in the NICU. After seeing my little baby hooked up to everything, wires, oxygen, getting poked and prodded, I had had enough. I walked in one time to see another little boy getting circumcised right there in the NICU. I looked at him and looked at my little buy and couldn't do it. Although no one at the hospital ever asked me if I wanted it done, or any mention of it at all. For which I am thankful.

In all my research about pros and cons, I saw a video, a guy put it together(oh and I am totally opposed to the idea that they can remember the pain once they are adults, ridiculous), it was about life and time, when we are 50 years old, 15 minutes isn't that long to us, because we have lived 50 years and 15 minutes in relation to our whole life isn't that much. But think about when you are 5 and you get a time out, if you were to be in time out for 15 minutes it is going to take forever, because in relation to your life it's a longer amount of time at that age. SO now think about this little baby that is a day, maybe two old. Think about him getting taken away from his mother to this place with these strange people, to get strapped down to this cold table, maybe getting a local, maybe not(it is not practiced in all hospitals) to get a part of his body removed. An elective cosmetic change. 

I can tell you as a mother of an unaltered little boy, it is no more work, there isn't anything special I have to do, but I can sit here and know, with all the things my little guy went through in the first few days of his life, I didn't put him through more than he had to go through. 

Now as I am on my birth board on a parenting website, and all these moms are having to deal with Penial Adhesion I am glad, something is growing back together that should have been like that from the start. And they are having to, over the course of weeks, to pull it down and put some sort of gel on it to keep it from sticking. I don't have to do a single thing, until he gets older, to teach him how to wash himself, which you have to teach every child. 

I am not trying to make anyone feel bad who chooses to have this done, it is your choice, you are the parent. I am not judging anyone who chooses to have this done, but I just want you to think about it before you choose. Don't just choose because "he will look like his dad". Choose because you are educated about the subject.