Awakening
March 21, 2014 Leave a comment
I cant even come up with a good title for this blog.
How does one think of a title for a story that breaks my heart every time I think back on events that have lead me up to even writing this?
Before I even begin, I want to say something about this blog. This is MY story. This is MY SONS story. This isn’t ME bashing or telling anyone else they are wrong for the choices they have made for their own children. We each come to a crossroads in our lives when the truth catches up with us. It took 10 years for me. It may take more or less for others. The goal is to EDUCATE and not hate. To share our stories with one another so that we can open ourselves up and see that we are not alone. That our ways of thinking can be changed with the wave of new information that comes before us. That we can do better for our children. Our awakenings are important. To us as parents and to our children who we try to do right by.
If by chance you find the topic of infant circumcision makes you want to burst out in anger because you don’t agree with me and what I say here, don’t read my blog. Don’t reply to this blog. Move on with your day and I wish you well. Its that simple.
Ill continue now. Please be respectful of my requests here and I will be respectful of you.
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This is a photo of my husband holding our first born son the day after his birth.
Below is a photo of me breastfeeding my new precious boy. 
Before his birth, we had no clue if he was going to be a boy or girl. We waited patiently and found out the moment he was born earthside that cold winter night back in January of 2002.
This photo was taken 2 days before our release from the naval hospital. We had had a very difficult and traumatizing hospital birth and we were kept a few extra days to make sure we were both fit to go home.
This photo was taken 2 days before I sent my sweet son off to be circumcised.
When the nurse came in and asked if we were “going to have it done”, my husband said yes. I really had ZERO clue about it. The only things I knew were that male relatives had it done, my husband was done and they were asking if we were “getting it done” so I blindly assumed that is what needed to be done.
Think back to 2002. The internet was still somewhat new. Webblogs and RSS was just starting to become popular with the world. Information was still being cataloged and YouTube, Facebook and Myspace were yet to be created!
As much as I would love to have been an informed mother, the technology just wasn’t up to par then. The information was still word of mouth and biased american doctors advice.
I was given a bad hand and my son paid the price for it.
My son was never the same after that day. Every diaper change that came for the week and a half that followed were both painful and gruesome to bare witness to. Having to unwrap his fresh wound around the most sensitive part of his baby body was horrible. He would cry. I would cry. I tried my best to put the Vaseline on every inch of the gauze pad so that it wouldn’t stick to his wound. This ways heavy on my mind. Seeing my baby in so much pain. I was told he could have Tylenol for pain management. They cut his foreskin off his penis and they give him Tylenol. They gave me an episiotomy (made a cut to my genitals) and gave me Tylenol with codeine. Something is seriously messed up with that when you think about it!!! How messed up is that!?
12 years ago, if someone had come to me and said, “Raquel, if you have a son, please don’t circumcise him” I would of scratched my head and said ‘what the heck is circumcision?’ But I probably wouldn’t have done it. And I would of spared my next son the same fate that my oldest had suffered. But no one told me no. Not even my own mothers intuition was there to stop me. That’s a whole story in itself. I was told all mothers come with intuition that tells them to not hurt their babies. Mental health issues play a part in prohibiting that intuition. But again, another blog, another day.
Im not going to make up excuses for what I didn’t know. All I can tell you is that I honestly did not have the information then that I do now. And that I regret beyond belief the choice I made to sign that paperwork that morning. The pain inflicted upon my brand new baby boy should NEVER have happened. I should of protected him. I should of known better. But I didn’t. That’s a price I pay for in my head and heart every single day.
I’m human. I made mistakes and I have lived every day of the last 3 years living in a regret mothers nightmare. Trying to make amends with my 2 boys. Trying to educate others on why the choice they claim is theirs to make, is not one that their own son would likely choose for himself. Telling my story and helping others is how I try to repent what I allowed to take place so ignorantly.
Ive been called horrible things by what I call ‘attack-tavists’. There are some out there who have let the hate consume them and have fallen off the path of the movement. I am not a child abuser. I am not a molester. I am not some cold hearted woman looking to seek revenge on men buy cutting my man hating opinion into them at birth. I am a mother. A mother who realizes the mistake she made. And I dont need others to remind me of it because I never forget.
I was recently told by people in my social network that I am gross for speaking out against routine infant circumcision. That I am a horrible person for talking about it. To that person, I find it gross that we as mothers allow ourselves to be so blinded by outdated medical advice and opinions and the need to change our sons to meet a specific criteria in today’s society. Its a horrible injustice to our sons that we teach them from the 2nd day of their lives that they are not perfect. That they are flawed and need fixing. That the way nature made them was wrong.
I was told by a medical professional that this is a choice we must all make for the good of our own kids. Its not. Its really, really NOT! We owe it to our boys to let them alone. We owe it to the sons who have already endured this cross that we have given to them upon their birth beds, the right to speak freely about how this has impacted their lives. How our CHOICE as a parent impacted THEM as an adult so that future sons will be spared.
This wasn’t easy to write. It is fueled by sadness and anger. Sadness that I carry with me for my sons who know what happened to them and anger for the American medical system that allows this to happen to our nations sons, still in 2014.
I could write a novel. But I wont. I will leave you with these parting word from a great man….
All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes. – Winston Churchill
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please visit these other websites for more information on keeping children intact.
http://www.circumstitions.com/index.html
www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org
Raquel Newton
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