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I let DH decide, he is so we did. I do regret it. I was the only one there at the hospital when they did it the day after he was born. I gave them my perfectly healthy baby boy and when he came back he was crying/agitated and the blood in his diaper made me feel horrible. I wish I had never done it and if I had another son I would not. We did have reattachment issues as a baby which was torture but haven't had any issues since he was like 1 I think.

My SIL and I were just discussing this last night, but DH and I haven’t yet. My inclination is to circumcise as to prevent problems later in life. Uncircumcised males are more prone to infections which can become particularly problemsome as they become elderly.

Fun fact: The first non-baby penis I ever saw was a 22 year old getting circumcised (I took a special health careers class in high school). The first thing the nurse said was “If you see him out at a party you don’t say a word.”

@graceandjoy: We did it and do not regret it. Here our ob does it. My little one was gone for 30 mins and no issues. He was comfortable and healed perfectly fine. DH wanted it done and so did I

I would chat with your husband more about it.

I’m in NZ, it’s not even an option over here and I think you’d find it very difficult to find a Dr that would perform such an unnecessary procedure.

We decided to do it and I regretted it, though now my feelings are mixed. I felt like it was mostly up to DH, because he was more familiar with the area, lol. He is, so he decided that DS should be. Also, since he is, he didn't know much about caring for one that's not. And of course, neither do I.

But then in the hospital when they went to take him away for it I was a mess and I was re-thinking the decision. And I felt like if we were going to do it, that was the time. Afterwards I felt terrible. Like I gave them my beautiful, perfect baby, and let them cut off a piece of him for no good reason.

Fast forward to today and IDK if it was the right choice or not. DS is very prone to that area becoming red and irritated. IDK if not circumcising would have been helpful, or if it would make this issue worse.

And like others, I'm really glad my 2nd was a girl. I didn't think I could do it again, but then I would've felt guilty for not treating them the same.

My DH isn’t and my boys are not. Out of my 7 close girlfriends and I, 5/8 do not circumcise, so I didn’t worry about him being different.

@silva: very true.

My first two are and were fine. DS3 was not because he has a penile torsion so he’ll have surgery at a year old to correct it and be circumcised. I honestly did not realize until recently that this was a hot button issue. I also don’t know what reattachment issues are, but I can guess and I’m not going to google it.

my three boys are not. it's not common at all where we live (canada) and you have to make a special appointment with a special doctor to do it (i believe there are only a handful of docs who do it in our large metro area), usually only for cultural reasons.

i know it's still a mixed bag in the states, but i think the rates are declining in general. we didn't know this when our first was born, and was surprised to find out it was so extremely uncommon!

Interestingly, one of the reasons that I originally chose to circumcise was our pediatrician. When I was growing up, she was staunchly anti-circumcision (she was our doctor from ages 2+, so it was more theoretical than anything). By the time I was pregnant, she was neither for nor opposed. She said her own child asked tone circumcised at 8 and it changed her perspective some. I combined her change of heart with DH’s desire to do it (Locker room reasons) and decided to do it. I guess I’m still not philosophically opposed, but still wish we hadn’t.

We did. I let my husband have final say, but we’re both from families with lots of men and boys every single one is circumcised, plus every sexual partner I ever had was, so it just seemed normal to me/us. My OB did it in the hospital and did not do a good job, she left too much skin on and it always looked weird, and not just to me. 2 years later my daughter was born with a kidney issue and I had her urologist look at my son (super well known and well respected doctor) and he was like, yeah, your son is half circumcised. Now, at that point if we’d never done anything I wouldn’t have touched him, but we had, and it cosmetically looked very strange. I just didn’t want him to have to go through a lifetime of insecurity based on my OB’s bad job in 60 seconds when he was a day old. So we scheduled a surgery with the urologist and he re-did it under full anesthesia and now it looks perfect, for a circumcised penis. More perfect than if we’d never done a thing, I don’t know. I wish I hadn’t put him through it and of course if it ever occurred to me that would happen I wouldn’t have, but he’s fine and doesn’t remember a thing. Certainly added fuel to the fire of everyone I know who’s anti.

I have two sons, and we didn't circumcise either of them. My husband also isn't, but that didn't really play into our decision - I just didn't see any reason to do it. I've only ever seen the "they're much more prone to infection!" argument here, and I just couldn't bear the thought of subjecting my baby to what was, to me, a cosmetic procedure.

If your dh is not, but wants his son to be, that would definitely have weight in my decision. There must be some reasons behind that? I’m not saying you should do it, but I would want to understand his thoughts on it.

We did, no regrets. Just want to mention if you do decide to do it - you could look into having a mohel do it (rabbi). We have one in our area who is well known for doing non-Jewish boys, he schedules those on certain days. I felt much more comfortable with it because he does tons of these, it’s his main job and for Jewish boys he’s doing it at the bris where he wants to keep the baby calm so he’s experienced at that aspect as well. DH and I were both there when he did it, it was super quick, I nursed the baby right after. We did it at 2 weeks old maybe, I also didn’t want to do it day 2.

Again not saying you need to do it, just that it doesn’t have to be a traumatic hospital experience! I was not going to do it that way for sure, and this was a nice compromise since dh strongly wanted to do it.

I have 4 brothers and they are all circumcised, along with my DH, so I never thought twice about it. My OB did the procedure for both of my boys and did an excellent job both times. They were gone for a few minutes and came back to the hospital room a little upset but easily comforted once back in my arms. It was not a big deal to me but interesting to read other people's perspectives.

@Mamatimes3: @LCTBQE: @Jess1483: @LadyDi: @ShootingStar: @pinkb: @crazydoglady: honest question and I won't "attack" but truly curious if you searched for pictures or videos before, to help you decide?

I don't know if there are videos available.

@DesertDreams88: I’d actually seen one done once (I job-shadowed a doctor in college). The baby—no joke—slept through the whole thing. So maybe my view on that was skewed? I don’t know. My husband watched both our boys as well and obviously wasn’t disturbed enough after the first to not do a second.

@DesertDreams88: I did not watch videos on it. Honestly, I did not have strong opinions about it. I’m not very squeamish. I watched my c sections and wasn’t grossed out. I guess I didn’t think about the pain for the baby.