I am Mom, Hear me Roar!

Yesterday I took my boys to the doctor. The youngest had a mysterious lump in parts unmentionable, and I wanted to have it checked out. Now, the penises of my children (oops, I just went mentioning it, didn't I?) are the subject of intense discourse between the doctor and I. Their father and I decided against circumcision when they were born. I didn't have a great deal to say on the matter except for a vague discomfort with the notion of cutting off a part of the body that it comes with naturally for no apparent good reason. In truth, I mostly deferred to the judgement of the penis bearing parent, feeling he would be the one who had the most compelling argument one way or another. Fortunately, we were both in agreement that circumcision was unnecessary at best and potentially harmful in not infrequent cases.

I'm a scrapper. I will go to bat for what I believe in, and backing down in the face of hypocricy, administrata, irrationality, fear, or habit isn't in my nature. I do, however, sometimes succumb to the niggling frisson of doubt and exhaustion from the fight. At 5, the foreskin of my eldest hadn't retracted. No Circ has been a source of great comfort, strength and information for me over the years. My knowledge of this particular health issue is sketchy at best, and, it seems, that is true for the medical community at large as well. It's been an uphill battle the whole time, to greater or lesser degrees, with every health professional that's taken a look at these non-standard genital choices. The doctor was convinced that something was terribly wrong. She referred us to a urologist.

The urologist suggested circumcision as the first and most obvious solution. The solution to what? Well see, that's the question. What is the actual health concern? They start throwing around stuff like adhesion. I rebut with "well yes, it's all sort of adhered together in there until it's time for the foreskin to retract, that's how it's kept clean, isn't it?" Then they talk about painful erections as adolescents, and the skin slipping back and basically cutting off the circulation to the glans. So which is it? Is the foreskin too tight, or is there atypical adhesion?

Sometimes, retreat is the better form of valor, and that's the direction I opted for. My feeling, backed by the research done by their dad, (or was it my mom? I admit, I came home exasperated and exhausted by the experience and dumped the research request on someone else who had the strength at the time) was that this would resolve on its own with time. And that there was plenty more time before a lack of resolution actually became a problem. Rather than fight and risk defeat in the face of exhaustion and doubt, I just tried to avoid talking with the doc about the issue at all.

Yesterday, the lump brought unwanted attention onto the youngest boys similar issue. I know my doc sees a bunch of people, and we don't go in there much. I don't expect her to remember everything that happens to my kids in minutia. So, I picked up Thing 1 to go along with us to Thing 2's appointment. Sometimes, I kill myself at how clever I am. Thing 1 has a foreskin that's now retracting, even tho the skin is still tight. (I'm fairly certain that teen boys doing what teen boys do will get that skin stretched out and working properly in little time) The adhesion is starting to come away from the glans. In effect, everything that's supposed to be happening, is.

She started in with the going to the urologist for Thing 2. I rebutted with how he was ignorant of the issues surrounding uncircumcized penises and that going to see him is an exercise in futility because he doesn't know what is normal and what isn't, and I'd rather not go unless she directs me to someone who is actually experienced in such matters unless she would like the lump looked at, in which case I would be happy to go. She went and checked Thing 1's chart and discovered the doc she wanted us to see was the one we already saw. She was stymied.

At that point, I had her look at Thing 1's new and improved foreskin function. The conversation/discussion/tension ground to a halt. She said something to the effect of: oh, well, that looks fine, I don't see any reason to be concerned.

Duh.

So, I drove my point home by pointing out that both boys have similar foreskins, and it's highly likely that Thing 2 will develop along similar timelines to Thing 1. She agreed, and it looks like I'm off the medical grill for at least a couple of years.

w00t!

I'm now free of the dread I felt whenever the topic came up. I hate having to fight so strenuously, but dammit, they are not going to hack and slash at my kids just because they don't fit into the uninformed timeline they have in their heads. Grrr.