Wednesday, November 7, 2012

A call for your stories!

Please consider submitting your personal story about circumcision. The more that people speak out and tell their stories, the closer we will get to ending this madness. You can submit your testimony to: circumcisioninsanity@yahoo.com, if you would like for us to publish it.

This letter was submitted by a Mother from Mississippi. Thank you for sharing it with us.  

My first son was circumcised a week after he was born.  It was not performed in the hospital, because the nurses let me breastfeed and my ob denied giving him the circ.  So the day of his circumcision I was instructed to not feed my little man four hours before and he was so upset and crying because he was so hungry.  Then we wait at the ob's office and are told that we are not to go back while the procedure is being done.  I had never known there was a choice for circumcision or truly what the procedure was, I was not even given the option of being present and didn't know that I could ask.  I could hear my baby cry so loud from the other room.  I was determined not to let that happen again if I had another boy.  Then my ob tells me that the gauze he had applied could be removed in a couple of hours by my pediatrician, since I had my son's one week check up the same day.  

Later at the pediatrician's office I told the doctor what my ob had instructed and my pediatrician had no idea of what to do!  We stumbled together trying to remove the gauze that was stuck to my son's penis.  It was horrible.  I changed pediatricians after this experience.  

So, years later my son is 4 years old and potty trained and makes a huge mess all over the bathroom while urinating.  He would pee the bed every night.  I was dumbfounded when his urine stream would shoot out like a rocket in more than one direction.  I called the new pediatrician and was referred to an urologist.  My son had complications due to an aggressive circumcision and needed surgery to correct the problem.  The urologist and all of the staff acted as if this is a simple and common procedure that they do all of the time.  What!?  All I could think is do people realize that circumcisions are commonly performed improperly and not only does the little baby boy have to go through the horror of a circumcision in the first place, but then must endure surgery and have their glans cut open and stitched back together and suffer another round of agonizing weeks of urinating on a wound? 

Thankfully I held true to my belief that it was uncalled for and did not put my second son through this procedure, but I will never be able to take away what my first son had to live through. 

On top of my guilt for allowing this to happen to my son and not questioning its validity I had another problem to go through, which was the ridicule from family members that take a religious view on this procedure and ostracized me for not going through with this with my second son.  It is shameful.  

I try to inform everyone that I can about the complications of circumcisions, because the doctors in my experience are not. 

Peace and Love
Anonymous Mommy in Mississippi

11-7-2012 update:
my son who had the surgery is now going to have a second surgery because of scar tissue that is forming and closing up the original surgical site.  He is now in kindergarten and I hope that others with knowledge will not have to go through this with their little man.