doctors

[flyawayfree]

does anyone know of a doctor in either northern nsw or on the gold coast who circumcises???
also, what is the doctor like? did they do your child? any problems with them?

[semazani]

Here is my experience with circumcision.

I was blessed with three boys and one girl. My three boys are circumcised and I have been doing research this past week about circumcision. I first started questioning it a slight bit in the last few months. My nephew is intact due to problems at birth and they were unable to circumcise him. I have found myself advocating keeping him intact without even really knowing why. I started thinking more on the subject after talking with Yoshua. I made a comment about the Case against Circumcision board and he let me know his thoughts. He is quite the advocate for keeping boys intact. We talked back and forth all this week through PM's and IM's. He even encouraged me to post on the board though I have to admit I was a bit intimidated by the idea. I was not sure how it would go over. I had a lot of things going through my mind at the time and wasn't sure of much of anything. I was also dealing with some unexpected feelings that came to surface which had little to do with circumcision; at least I couldn't initially figure out the connection. Yoshua was unwavering through all my questions and doubt. He always had a way of making his point without offending me or making me feel like I should be on the defensive. I have made the decision after much thought that circumcision is indeed wrong and unnecessary. I really have Yoshua to thank for encouraging me along. I have a thread in Case against Circumcision if you are interested in following a small part of my journey. Here are my stories.

My oldest son has a typical circumcision as far as I could tell. He is now eleven years old. I remember when he was circumcised in the hospital he was five days old. He weighed four pounds five and a half ounces. They weren't sure if they were even going to circumcise him because of his size, but decided at the last minute to go ahead with it. I remember being so upset when they brought him back to me and I changed his diaper the first time. It looked so sore and raw. I remember when the doctor came in to look at him and check the circumcision my son's hand inadvertently hit his penis separating the skin along the shaft from the head of his penis. I remember thinking that probably wasn't a good thing and the doctor even commented about that not being helpful. They just advised me to keep changing the bandage for a couple of extra days and he would be fine. We never had any other issues and his circumcision seemed to heal fine. However, now I wonder, after looking through some of the pictures, if he will have issues when he hits puberty. His circumcision looks very similar to this photograph I found on one the sites showing complications. http://www.circumcisionquotes.com/images/slide8.jpg (http://www.circumcisionquotes.com/images/slide8.jpg). The remaining skin under the head of his penis is a bit tighter than the one in the picture. I always thought it healed that way from the way he hit his penis. I never even thought about it until now. I can only pray that he won't encounter problems as he grows and matures.

My middle son was circumcised at three days old. I never even thought anything of it. I just viewed it as a procedure that was done. He had what I believe is termed a loose circumcision. He didn't even appear to be circumcised most of the time. The head of his penis remained covered unless we pulled the foreskin back which we were told to do at each cleaning. He started having issues with adhesions when he approximately six months old. I was told by the pediatrician to just be sure I pulled his foreskin back and clean really well. He showed us how to pull the skin back so that the entire head was exposed. I remember how much my son cried and screamed when we did this to him. I was supposed to do this each diaper change so the adhesions would not return. I couldn't do it all the time, so I would try to do it once a week. He would cry for a day or two each time we did this to him because the skin was torn from his penis and it would cause pain upon urination. The pediatrician finally referred us to an urologist who recommended we have him circumcised again. He said the adhesions would keep coming back and the re-circumcision would prevent further issues. At eighteen months old my little boy was re-circumcised. After the surgery, we were brought to him and he seemed just fine. When the doctor came in, he wanted to show us how to care for his penis as there were eighteen stitches just below the head of his penis. You couldn’t see them when you took off his diaper because the remaining foreskin was still covering most of the head of his penis. The doctor instructed us to pull the skin over his penis and gently clean around the stitches. My son would scream and cry because of all the pain he was in, but we were told the stitches would become infected if we did not clean it properly. My son spent the next several years in fear of anyone touching penis. We taught him how to clean and pull the remaining skin over his penis, but we still would have to clean it sometimes for him. It took my husband and me to clean his penis. My husband would lie across him so he couldn't move and I would pull the skin back to clean it. I tried to by gentle, but it didn't matter. We continued doing this until he was close to five years old. He is now eight and he is in charge of cleaning his own penis. The head of his penis is still covered about halfway and he spends a lot of time pushing on his penis to get it back in what skin remains. He said it feels weird if it is out and he does not like the feeling. I would also get on him about doing this because it bothered me to watch him constantly pushing on his penis. I will no longer be reprimanding him for this as maybe it will help to save some of the sensitivity that I am sure will be gone once he grows and matures. I can only pray he doesn't loose as much as his brother who never had any skin covering the head of his penis.

My youngest son was circumcised at three days old as well. He has a loose circumcision as well. He had always appeared to not be circumcised. I used to have family ask me why we did not circumcise him. When I said we did, they would always say they did not take enough off. We did not have the adhesion issues with him as we did with his brother. He seemed to do just fine. I made sure to be more diligent in pulling his foreskin back and cleaning it because I feared a repeat of what happened with his brother. My youngest son is now five years old and I can say he had picked up on his brother's cues to push his penis in the remaining skin. The head of his penis is just now starting to be seen most of the time. He is intent on keeping the foreskin over it as much as possible. I used to reprimand him as well for "messing" with his penis. Now, I remain silent and pray for him as well. I have more regret than I ever thought I would for subjecting my boys to this unnecessary procedure. There is nothing I can do now, but pray they will understand and forgive me when they realize what I allowed to happen to them.