Is that normal? All moms make different choices and that’s ok… right? 😊

Recently as in like last week I took my son to have his first surgery ever! It was to redo his circumcision no less. When they say no two children are alike they weren’t exaggerating as he may be my calm child he has also been attached to me from the start. I know I personally have treated him differently than I did when my daughter was his age. I dote on him more, I coddle him and I am not one to let him cry for too long. Also he has never stayed the night or any extended time at any one person’s home without me being present so when it came to my attention that surgery was our only option to fix his issue I was a nervous wreck. What’s his issue? Well it has something to do with the human anatomy that makes boys different from girls. Look I know this is a touchy subject with big debates on to circumcise or not and honestly no I did not do a lot of research on the matter myself but decided with my husband that he would be circumcised. Little did we know that even before he was born the choice would not really be our own.
I remember going to my ultrasounds and I do mean ultrasounds as in soooo many during my pregnancy partly because my husband was born with an issue with his heart and because let’s face it I am not the healthiest person out there(I’m working on it ok!) By the end of my pregnancy I was taking entire days off of work to go to my regular OB appointments and then to the high risk doctor. At one of my last appointments before Kai made his way into this world I remember the doctor reviewing the ultrasound images and asking me about circumcision. I told him we would be doing so and the only response I got back was “Good! Let them know he has fluid on his scrotum when they do it”…Weird right? That’s what I thought so I asked should I be concerned. No no no he said it’s just something to be noted and to keep an eye on he’s fine. Ok! I thought still weird but if he says it’s not an issue then it’s not an issue right? Well it came time for him to get the procedure done and it went fine. He cried for barely a second and came back to me all bright eyed and ready to head back home.
The trouble began a few days later as it began to heal. So I am going to be honest I had no idea what I was suppose to expect. It got to the point where I had my best friend giving me pointers and tips and examining how it should look compared to how it did look. I got really concerned when I took him to his first appointment with his pediatric doctor. She asked me was he circumcised and all but told me it didn’t look to be correct and to reach back out to my doctor’s office to have another look. I did so and my doctor said she didn’t feel there was enough rough material to take anymore than she did. Now I advised her beforehand of what the high risk doctor said about the fluid and asked at the follow up appointment if this was also the reason for the incomplete look. She told me no and to give it more time to heal but if anything he may need to have it redone once he was older maybe 5 or 6 years of age to be exact. This honestly still didn’t sit right with me and after a few more regular check ups with his ped and a talk with other moms I scheduled for him to see the specialist. The issue seemed to be getting worse and while he didn’t seem uncomfortable I also started to get more concerned with potty training him and recovery time at such a older age.
His ped urologist from just a glance told me he would need to undergo surgery to correct the issue. No waiting would not make it better with time and yes regardless of if he had it originally done or if we would have opted out all together we would have ended up here. I felt such a relief knowing that my gut was right and that I wasn’t putting my son through something for my own selfish reasons but because it needed to get done. He had a condition called a buried penis. It was an issue that developed in the womb where extra fluid on his scrotum caused the skin to adhere in a high place than it should have. While most boys have a little bit of skin that needs to be cut away or pushed back if you opt out of doing a circumcision he had a lot and it continued to grow after birth. So with his first circ the skin again adhered to the wrong spot and buried him all over again. When his doctor finished the procedure this past thursday she came out and described to me what sounded like a horror show honestly. But she again reassured me that I made the right choice with coming to her office and getting the procedure done now while he is young enough that it not interrupt him walking or being potty trained. I would go into more details but if this is still active when he gets older he will probably never speak to me again lol.
I just wanted to make a point that there is always two sides to everything you do or don’t do for your child and we should respect each other as mothers and as basic human beings. There should never be mom shaming for Breastfeeding vs Formula, Stay at home moms vs working moms, reusable diapers vs disposable, glass bottles vs plastic, baby wearing vs none and so on. The point is it is a battle and a job like no other let’s try to support each other instead of putting each other down. And just know if your child comes to my house, we watch way too much tv, play fight and eat chicken nuggets like they are they’re their own food group so leave your judgement at the door and come have some fun.