Guest Blogger

Originally posted www.honestlyyours-me.blogspot.com

After almost 4 years, I finally have the courage to write this. It’s been on my heart forever and even more so since my second son was born almost a year ago.

When I was pregnant with T, I, like many women pregnant with a boy, was asked “Are you going to circumsize?”. I actually think my own Dr was against it because she never presented a single pro/con, it was just a routine question that I’m sure she asked every mom. My response when she asked me was “No”. It was simple. I didn’t want to see my baby go through something like that, it cost 200$, and I just didn’t feel the need to. My mom, who was (and I hope not now) pro-circ, could not believe that I would not consider it. I gave her my reasons, and for her, they were not good enough. I had researched every other decision I had made, but not this one, and my 2 reasons just didn’t cut it for her. She came up with every horror story about boys having it done at 4 years old, or elderly men having it done, I was never quite convinced but when she said that her and my dad would pay for it and my dad would go in the room with him for the procedure, I basically agreed to get her off my back.

The day of the procedure was nothing special. I nursed and wore my 10 day old like normal and we went to the office where it was done. My dad stayed with T and when it was over he brought me out a baby with hardly any tears on his face but my dad looked shook up. The nurse told me how to care for it then I nursed T and we went home. After dinner I went to take off his diaper to get ready for bed and his diaper was FULL of blood. I was aware that some bleeding was normal but for his diaper to have so much blood in it that it was no longer absorbing, that didn’t seem normal. I took off the blood soaked gauze and found a spot where the blood was spurting out of. I lost my mind. I called my mom to take us to the hospital because I couldn’t drive yet due to my post partum swelling/stitches. We arrived at the hospital and T didn’t seem to be in any pain. He wasn’t crying or even slightly fussy. I just kept nursing and holding him. We were shown to a room almost immediatly because it was quite serious. A nurse checked his vitals and a Dr came in to assess. We were then told that an artery had been knicked during the circumcision. I must have had guilt written all over my face because the nurse was quite kind to me. They took blood from T to run some tests because they wanted to make sure he didn’t have a blood clotting disorder as well as some other things. I can’t remember all that happened because it was such a blur. In between tests I held him and nursed him. It was all I could do. I remember my mom saying “I’ve never heard of such a thing happening” in complete disbelief. After all, she had put the pressure on for me to do this. When everything had come back normal, the Dr said that he had to cauterize the wound. In layman’s terms, burn it shut. He was put on his back on a bad while I held his arms and had my face close to his while the further mutilated his penis. He screamed for a second and then it was over. I held him and nursed him. It was all I could do.
I don’t remember much about the days or weeks after. He was lucky to have no further complications. I do remember going to see my Dr and she said she had never seen anything like that and there was empathy in her eyes because she knew I initially didn’t want to do it. I blamed my mom for a long time. I blamed the 65 year old Dr with shakey hands who shouldn’t be practising still. I now blame myself.

I am lucky that T developed into a happy, wonderful child who is now a loving big brother. He’s never had any signs of PSTD however I wouldn’t be surprised if they ever did develop. Our 11 month old is not circumsized. I don’t think anyone, including my Dr even asked me if I was considering it. I remember reading a part in Jenny McCarthy’s book about circumcision, she said that she wanted her son to have a “pretty penis”. It disgusted me because my now almost 4 year old has a scar and excess skin on one side. I will have to explain to him one day what happened and I’m fearing the worst. “Why would you do that to me mum”. I dread it.

So post this everywhere. Send this link to every mum who is pregnant with a boy or might have to make this decision.
Yes, I regret doing it, but I’m hoping that some of my own healing can come from sharing this and maybe change even one person’s mind.

Book Feature by Bhairvi Johnston

It’s tough enough raising well balanced kids but try doing through a divorce or separation.  How you handle this life change will directly affect your children.  So you if can get through this typically difficult transition with self control – you and your children will live well moving forward.

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Guest Blogger: Bhairvi Johnston

Pebble Mountain Organizing

Moving Mountains One Pebble at a Time

Delegation – A wonderful thing!  Often difficult for some but once accomplished, what a great option for freeing up some valuable time. Your own family is a great  resource for helping out around the house. By getting children on board, many daily household tasks can be completed without your participation.   The challenge comes at the beginning of the process when implementing this option.  We need to train others, develop patience and accept that the final result will or may vary from the results of our own efforts.

Delegating regular and age appropriate household tasks to family members can be the answer to a more balanced home environment.  By involving children early on, many can benefit. Yes, it’s true the towels may not be folded they way we like with all the corners matched up but if it get’s done well enough, it’s not so bad. In fact, by having young children complete this job, they feel helpful and good  about themselves because they are helping you, especially, if  you show them gratitude. You may be surprised to see their eagerness at first but then notice it’s gets boring for them after a while. It’s said that,  “routine creates habit” and this is an excellent habit. After some time, you’ll notice an improvement in those folded towels.

There are many other simple tasks around the house that can be delegated to others. Figure out what they are and who in your home can take on these new projects.  Take the extra time to teach the “chosen ones” what needs to completed, how to do it and how often the task needs to be done.  Depending on the age and task assigned, you may need to supervise the activity several times. You may even need to be in the room during the process if the kids are very young but still old enough to help out and participate in the family responsibilities.
Some of the duties may include emptying the dishwasher. One hint for younger kids is to put all the plastic dishes on the lower tray of the dishwasher and have these types of dishes permanently housed in a low cupboard. Other ideas include dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, watering plants, setting and clearing the table and making beds. All of these jobs have been performed by 3+ years of age.  For older children, the assignments could be different. If by chance, you are having trouble coming up with age appropriate tasks, remember the stories our parents told us about working in the barn or on the farm milking cows, fetching water, chopping wood and taking care of our young siblings all at the ripe age of two!!

Chores are an important part of teaching simple responsibility and respect for environment. Combining these lessons with reward is also something to consider. If your option for reward is allowance, then you can also begin lessons on the value of money. For younger kids, they concept of saving money is not too exciting.  It can become more interesting for them however, if the reward offers more immediate satisfaction. By taking the young ones to the dollar store once a week with their loonie, they will see the benefits of earning money and enjoying it’s rewards.

Finally, another good habit is to encourage a rule for children to put one game, project or activity away before pulling out a new one. Also, cleaning up at the end of the day is much easier this way.  A few minutes of clean up before the next play activity, lunch or bed will become their norm if you make it happen.