I see many familiar faces on this board - but I should probably introduce myself from a circumcision POV. So here's the story.
The only thing I ever heard growing up about circumcision was from a male friend who had a father who was intact, he said his fathers penis was gross, all the children had circ'd penises, my friend was glad he was circ'd. When I was pg with my first I didn't know boy/girl and was considering the circ issue. My dh at the time was circ'd and happy with his penis. My mom freaked that I was considering this at all and told me my dad was intact and it was gross. Apparently my father had a hygiene issue. I had a girl and was glad not to have to make that decision, because I had heard such negative things about remaining intact but my gut told me it was better.
Fast forward a few years a divorce and and a few more years to my remarriage, and I got pg with boy/girl twins. This time we knew the genders ahead of time. I have three stepsons and all are circ'd, dh is circ'd, I thought I'd let dh decide, and he said circ. I was okay with it, though still had a nagging feeling. My twins came 10.5 weeks early and were in the NICU a long time. When it came close to my son being discharged they asked about circ and I said yes, signed the consent form and everything. That day or the next twin boys in the same room were circ'd. Their mom was not present and one of the boys would not calm down after. I watched the nurse try and try to comfort him, and saw her concern that he would not settle and we all watched the heart monitor racing and beeping. It took a long time for him to be okay.
I told the nurse right then that I wanted to be present for the circ. No way was my son going through that and being left with only a nurse to comfort him, I'm the mom that's my job. She added that to the form. That night I told dh about it and our discussion led to a lengthy internet search and dh saying that he only circ'd his oldest because the doctor said it was necessary, he originally planned to say leave it alone. He agreed to have the others circ'd because he believed the original doctor. I found that the AAP did not recommended it (I was not surprised given what I had researched about circ years before).
I was worried about how my son would feel being intact and so I stayed up late reading a bunch of message boards trying to get the male and female POV (my mother's reaction to my father's intact penis still bothered me). I found lots of pictures of circ/intact and erect/not erect penises. I agonized over trying to predict what my son would want, and not wanting to make a decision he would later be unhappy with. I still wasn't 100% sure but with tenuous confidence and dh's agreement, I went into the NICU in the morning and ripped up the consent form. I breathed a sigh of relief when I did it. My son is the only intact male in a family of 5 men and personally, I think that's going to be just fine.
"If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it." - Mary Engelbreit.
