Circumspection

Ramon was circumcised yesterday. That was a first for me. Having two daughters, I've never had to witness or participate in a circumcision before. And really, it's not as big a deal as I had be led to believe. I mean, for days I was agonizing about how it would hurt the baby and how I might be traumatized by the whole thing and boy am I thankful to have only one son, and then yesterday came around and it was a simple quick procedure. It was also quite interesting for me, because Tito Jojo explained each step and all the nifty little devices he used to perform the circumcision, I was quite fascinated, and not traumatized at all. Quite the opposite, it felt good to have learned something new.

But more importantly, how did Ramon do?

Well, he cried furious hell while Tito Jojo was prepping him with topical anesthesia, and putting betadine all over his groin with cotton balls. It hasn't even started yet! We were just waiting for his skin to numb! I guess he had very violently strong objections to being laid out under bright lights, exposed as he was and not being carried. Such indignity! Anyway, he cried himself so tired that by the time the injection anesthesia came, he just continued crying like nothing happened. The crying subsided after that, and by the time the clamping and pulling and the tugging and the separating the skin from the thing came around, get this. Ramon was asleep. He slept though the bell thing and the clamp thing and the cutting of the foreskin. Out cold the whole time. Only to wake up again and protest wildly at being cleaned and bandaged with gauze. What a funny boy.

We covered him up and dressed him and then he got his second Hep B shot and he cried at that more than during the actual circumcision (not counting the prepping part. he cried the most at that.) and it was at that point that Mike called. He was home from a meeting and couldn't be there at this momentous occasion. He could hear the crying and told me he could feel his son's pain. But aside from the injection, Ramon wasn't in pain cause the anesthesia was still in effect. Anyhoo, we went home, he cried in the beginning and the end of the trip home (basically cried while we were stuck in traffic but slept though the non-traffic parts).

Last night he slept better than I thought he would, because I was expecting him to be wailing in pain when the anesthesia wore off. And he did, when I removed the gauze at 2AM. But he soon quieted down when we nursed and he fell asleep. I didn't move him to his crib last night, I kept him close so I could hug him whenever he stirred, so I guess I slept less than he did. This morning, I cleaned him with hydrogen peroxide and OH THE TORTURE! But I had to keep at it as long as I could because if he gets infected that would just be worse than torture.

When I was in third grade I had this wound on my foot that had puss and was awful and I had to clean it with agua oxigenada too, and my mom would tell me to keep putting hydrogen peroxide until no more bubbles formed, and that's how you knew it was clean. Well, I couldn't keep at it that long with Ramon, it just seemed too mean and too painful. I just did it for as long as I could. I suppose I'll have to go through the whole torture routine again tonight. I really hope he heals fast. I'm not queazy at all, blood and guts never bothered me. But knowing that I am hurting my son, that's just hard. Makes me wonder why I would put an infant through such a thing as circumcision. Pwede namang later on in life when he knows better. But then again, Mike said it would be more trouble later on, longer healing, more difficult procedure, so we just have to suck it up now and he will thank us later. Anyway he's too little to remember.