Newborn Stories: Circumcision

I've spent more than enough time in hospitals giving birth that it absolutely terrifies me when I have to go back. When my son William was born, his father was adamant on having him circumcised. I didn't have a set opinion on the subject, and so we made the appointment for the procedure, about two weeks after William was born. Unfortunately, my husband had moved to a new city to find us a home close to where he would be working. So at about six am on that Wednesday morning, I got up, bundled up the baby, and headed to the outpatient center.

The first thing that happened was the application of some numbing cream, something I would imagine is similar to ora-jel, but a lot stronger. He wasn't allowed to eat for four hours before the procedure, and his appointment was right at seven. Unfortunately, the doctor hit traffic and didn't arrive at the hospital till forty five minutes late. They were at that point giving me a sugar water to try to tide the baby over, and then they came in and got him.

They sent me out to the waiting room, and instructed me to watch the screen to know when to come back and get the baby. The screen never even loaded the information. Almost immediately I heard the shrieking, and went running. A nurse looked at me and asked, "yours?"

They gave me the baby once he was cleaned and bundled up. We spent about three more hours after that in the hospital, just waiting, checking him to make sure the wound wasn't bleeding unnaturally, and making sure that he was feeling fine.

That was one of the scariest things for me. I've never not been in the room during a procedure like that, so my stress level was pretty high. It was pretty hard after that to keep him comfortable, but the nurses kept bringing me heated sheets to keep him comfortable, so that was nice.

Sometimes we have to go through things that are pretty hard, but as Mother's, it's just implanted into us to be able to deal with it.