Hellobee Boards

Yikes, that's a tricky one! I have no personal experience with this, as DH and I were on the same page (strongly against), and we have girls anyway, but this is a situation where you need to hold strong. Your DH's reasons are superficial and ridiculous; once this procedure is done, it can never be undone; because of that, it should be your son's decision to make when he is older.

I think your reasons/explanations for how/why you do not want to circumcise are perfectly reasonable and logical. Your son should not be physically altered, against your desire, just so your DH and son can have matching willies. <insert eye roll>

It's not an issue of 'winning' the argument, as clearly one person is going to get their way and one isn't; it's a matter of whether or not you let an unnecessary medical procedure be done on your newborn. Since it can never be undone, the reasonable conclusion is to not have it done and let the person it affects most, your son, make that choice for himself when he is able.

Big hugs, this sounds like a crappy position to be in.

ETA: just reread you're TG so change all my references to 'your son', to 'your potential son'!

I agree that other than your DH's first reason, the other two don't really make sense to me as reasons to perform what is really a cosmetic surgery on a newborn. How often will your DH be comparing his penis to your child's? As for teasing in the locker room, in this day and age I haven't heard of that happening, but even if it does, I don't think potential teasing is a reason to alter your body when there is nothing "Wrong" with it--not to mention, that I'm sure the boys who are circumcised still get teased for something. If it's a rite of passage, then there will ALWAYS be something that other people will find to pick on.

Ultimately, it's a decision you and your DH should come to together--you can always wait to see what you end up having, and then do it when LO is a few days/a week old, as is common for Jewish people. Hugs! I hope you're able to come to an agreement!

My DH isn't circumsized, I asked him if he was every teased and he said, "no, never." Neither was his brother. I think that's a silly reason to do something anyway. I hope you guys can come to an agreement, whichever way it is!

We chose not to for all of the reasons you listed.

According to this NYT article from last year, only a bit more than half (58%) of babies in the US are circumcised these days. So there goes the argument for weird looks in the locker room.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2013/08/22/u-s-circumcision-rates-are-declining/

I think this is a decision best left between you and your husband, and not crowd-sourced on a site that tends to lean (very heavily) to the non-circ side.

@hilsy85: I don't know if that's true or not, or whether it seems that way to me due to a vocal minority . . . But what I do know is there have been some pretty crappy (, i.e., overly harsh/ judgmental/ unhelpful) responses in more recent circ threads, and I didn't want to see a repeat of that here.

@night cheese: I'm sorry, that must be so hard Personally, with something like physically altering a baby's appearance, if we couldn't agree I would think we wouldn't do it. I think you both have to be on board before it happens. Good luck, it must be difficult

@sorrycharlie: @MsLipGloss: yup was just looking at a poll thread! Here it is:
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/didwill-you-have-your-son-circumcised

I agree that overly harsh/judgmental comments aren't helpful for anyone! I think this is just a very personal topic, and people can have very strong feelings about it (either for or against).

@hilsy85: oh, I remember that thread. The point wasn't to start a debate, but just say yes or no, but it quickly turned in the other direction!

I get why the debate happens though--it's a very personal question that people feel strongly about.

@night cheese: on a side note, re: people saying his reasons are no good. I learned the hard way how easy it is to be dismissive and hurtful of my DH's opinions when it comes to LO related decisions. I did so much research and felt very valid shooting down all of his feeling-based opinions. Turns out that is not a very respectful or team oriented way to parent. And turns out some of his feeling based opinions blew my research based opinions out of the water when it came to what worked for our family.
Good luck! Medical decisions are the worst to disagree on!

@night cheese: will you be talking to other doctors as well? I'm sorry that it didn't help to solve the issue!

You still have time with this. Maybe giving it each other a little space will help. I know that if I feel like my back is against the wall, I will dig in my heels and get defensive.

This may not be helpful, but i just decided to defer to my husband on this one. There are plenty of decisions that he trusted me to make based on my experience with kids etc, and when it came to the birth itself he completely trusted me. I decided to trust him on this one. Honestly it wasnt even really a conversation for us. I trust that he has our childs best interest in mind, just like I do.

@Mrs. Lion: I was just coming to share the same type of thing! My parents have always discussed things and are in agreement about issues 99.9% of the time. But for those rare instances where the disagree, they defer to each other based on the topic (my mom is a childhood expert & my dad is a business guru). It is a very respectful situation.

I remember in our pre-marriage counseling talking about this type of situation. We were told, "You can't have two quarterbacks calling the shots."

The experiences and opinions of others should have zero impact on this decision...

@mrbee: my comment was more directed at the responders who chose to share their opinions on whether or not to circ rather than how to resolve a disagreement with a spouse.

I feel like a lot of people are giving their opinions about circs instead of answering your question. To answer your question:

Did anyone else disagree with their SO on circumcision? Yes, we disagreed on an intense level

How did you decide what to do? We talked to my OB (who would be performing it), our pediatrician, a pediatric urologist I work with, and did a lot of our own research.

@grizz: agree

I was about to write almost the same thing. in our case, we haven't discussed it at length because I'm still on the fence..so I'm not sure how our disagreement might go.

but assuming it does become an issue - I would have us both speak with pediatrician (we will be using DD's ped, so at next well baby visit), my OB (no idea if that's who would be performing it or not, but still, a helpful insight), and nurses in the hospital. Our hospital does it right before discharge, I believe, so we would have at least a day to speak to nurses if we were still in disagreement.

the other thing - this may seem silly - that I do in situations that are tough is do a, "one week, one year, 5 year" scenario. if I make decision A, how will I feel about that in one week? how will it affect me and others? how will I feel about it in all likelihood in a year? 5 years? etc. sometimes what I feel like is a emotional, pressing issue in the moment may not be as big a deal down the line. (not saying circumcision decision isn't a big deal).

@Mrs. Lion: this was us too. I felt he had more experience in this matter and I didn't have strong feelings either way. We were team green but had a plan for if the baby was a boy. He defers to me on most baby things but I deferred to him on this.

We had a girl anyway.

@MamaMoose: @MsLipGloss: I think that when you give reasons to do or not do something, you invite discussion of those reasons. Maybe that was not the OPs intention, but by listing her reason and her husbands, I think it is natural for posters to then respond to those reasons, especially if this is an issue they have dealt with, and maybe had some of those reasons too.

@night cheese: I should have added our own experience struggling with this decision. I wanted to circ, DH strongly did not. We examined our reasons--his were similar to yours in that there is no medical reason to do it, and since we are not religious, there is no religious reason. SO in his opinion, we would have been doing it for purely cosmetic reasons/to go along with something of a societal norm (which is becoming less of a norm). I wanted to circ because....I just always assumed we would! And I knew our families expected us to, and I didn't want to be isolated in our decision. Ultimately, though, I decided that cold hard science (I.e. the lack of evidence that we could find in favor of circ'ing) was more important than my desire to please other people (because for me, that's really what it was).

Because you both have such strong opinions it sounds like the only option is for one of you to just give in and go along with what the other wants. You can't exactly compromise by only circumcising half of your LO's penis If your DH is strongly in favor of circumcising for personal reasons then there is a chance no amount of research is going to change his mind. Whatever you decide I do encourage you to come to a resolution before you give birth...this is not a debate I'd want to have in the delivery or recovery room when you'll have enough on your plate with a newborn.

I know that the circumcision debate tends to be a heated one, but in my opinion it's not some earth-shattering decision (and maybe that's easy for me to say because we had a girl--and knew she was a girl from 16 weeks on--so we never had to have this discussion). Yes, there is a very small percentage of boys that will have complications during or as a result of the procedure, and there is a very small percentage of boys that will have health issues related to not being circumcised. But I think for the vast majority of men it's not something that affects their everyday life. Being circumcised or uncircumcised is all they've ever known and that's just the way it is. Again, just my opinion!