Conner's Circumcision

We had discussed circumcision with the doctor and agreed to have it done. He said he would do it after birth. Knowing what I know now, I should have asked when after birth! As soon as I gave birth to Conner, the doctor took him from my vagina, wrapped him in a cloth, and had him taken over to the nurses counter, without letting me so much as hold him. They spent a minute checking vital signs and clearing the gunk away first. At this point I thought that they would give me Conner back, but they didn't. Conner had not yet been alive for five minutes, when the doc strapped him down to a board on the table. I could only watch as the doc spread a blanket over Conner, popped his penis through a hole and crammed a probe in it. Poor Conner, 5 minutes old, who had not been held by his mommy, and who had not even stopped crying from the delivery, began screaming. Hubby stood there in silence, and I asked the doc what he was doing. The doc simply responded, "Why circumcising your baby! This is what you wanted!" I could only sit there as he kept scraping between the head and the foreskin, again and again, trying to separate the membrane. Conner screamed and screamed, but the doctor only stopped for a moment to tighten the Velcro holding my son down. He then picked up some scissors, and made a slit in the foreskin. He then crammed in a metal bell and pulled up the skin around it. To the sounds of Conner's screams, he took a pin and stuck it in the foreskin to hold it in place. He then put a clamp around the skin and tightened a bolt. With each twist the screams got louder, screams that I thought were as loud as could be, kept getting louder. With a final twist, the doctor set the clamp down and left him on the table. He switched gloves and helped me deliver the placenta, with my sons wails in the background. Five minutes later, went back to Conner, picked up a scalpel, and sliced off the skin. He removed the bell then to reveal an angry red glans, completely free of skin and pointing straight up. He then callously wiped the supersensitive glans with gauze, which made Conner shriek even more. He then picked up a pair of scissors and made a final cut to remove, what I know now is, the frenulum. Conner continued to wail as the glans was wiped once again, bandaged and diapered. A nurse then removed my shaking boy and handed him to me, after 12 minutes on a board of his 17 minutes of life. When I asked why it had been done so soon, the doctor responded that he wanted my son to get circumcision out of the way, and since he had been done so close to birth, he was disoriented and did not need anesthesia. Yeah right. Conner was scalped completely, and although he is only 2, the skin is still taught and there is no slack left whatsoever. My poor boy.

Sarah