I want to share this story of my friend’s son circumcision journey. It might change a baby’s life so please take a minute to read it.
Circumcision is something people don’t talk about and we should. Back in 2010 there was an article written about this topic: New Study Estimates Neonatal Circumcision Death Rate Higher Than Suffocation and Auto Accidents. This only talks about the babies that actually die but there are so many more babies that have complications from circumcision that we don’t know about.
Circumcision is an elective procedure so when something goes wrong the parents felt the burden of this decision.
You probably know of babies that have gone through circumcision without any issues but what if your baby ends up being one of those with a complication?
Please share this story. It might change a baby’s life.
All of those who are on the fence about circumcision or who are planning to do it, please take a few minutes and read my son’s story.
We had my son circumcised when he was a day old, my husband wanted it done and I left that decision up to him. Little did I know, that was something that we would both come to regret.
A couple weeks ago, the tip of my son’s penis started looking really irritated. I figured it was because my diapers needed to be stripped. I stripped them. Three times. His penis was not getting better. Within a couple of days, it looked like his urethra opening was ripping. I looked for advice from some of the wonderful ladies in Fluff Friends group and one of them suggested it might be a circumcision complication.
We took him to the Children’s hospital here to be checked out. The resident suggested it was our diapers then, the attending said it was herpes which was likely caused by us sexually abusing him. The WTF factor for that is very high. Our kids are NOT sexually abused.
The next day, we made an appointment with our pediatrician. He said it was most likely because his penis was growing. We demanded to be referred to a urologist.
Since then, we have seen two urologists who both agree that it is a circumcision complication and my baby will need a series of 4 skin grafts to correct it.
We have a meeting with a third urologist, a lawyer, and the doctor who performed his circumcision on the 12th. The doctor wants to apologize to us because she admits that she did not have time to properly perform the procedure and also did not administer any form of numbing agent.
As a result of this, his penis might never function properly and each time he gets an erection, his penis splits just a little more. He wakes up every night when he gets an erection screaming in pain.
We now live with the guilt that we did this to him. We made a life altering decision to remove part of his body and our baby boy has to pay the price.
If you want to know more about circumcision read 5 Reasons Why I Chose to Not Circumcise My Sons by my friend Jessica.
Ugh, horrible. What’s so sad is that botched circumcision are SO common. I would say I don’t know why it doesn’t make the news or the laws aren’t changed, but we all know why :/ $$$
After posting this so many people started sharing with me horror stories like this one. It’s really sad that babies have to go through this. I wish it wasn’t such a common procedure.
I must admit that I don’t give much thought to male circumcision. It always seems to be female circumcision that is highlighted in the media – and that isn’t often enough!
I hope your friends son has no lasting problems from his circumcision complications, it must be awful for them, knowing that it was a choice they made. I respect their decision to share their story, that could not have been an easy thing to do and hopefully it will prevent some other child going through the same.
The bit that I found most shocking was the Doctor saying that the problem was probably caused by sexual abuse! I am not saying that it doesn’t happen as we all know it does, but what I do say is tread carefully and look at the facts before pointing fingers as the consequences of a false accusation can be devastating.
Thank you for sharing this story.
Yes, it was rough. I too didn’t think much about it until I had my daughter, which led me to meet other moms, which educated me on this topic.
I don’t have a son yet but I’m glad I know more about this now.
And it is crazy how sexual abuse can be brought up in so many random scenarios and sometimes not caught when it’s really happening. It’s sad.