October 3, 2006: To Snip, or Not To Snip?

Odds are just about coin-flip even on a boy or a girl. If she emerges a she, Toby and I are off the hook on the biggest unresolved question we have encountered thus far. Labial trimming is simply not a consideration for either of us. But if the little guy decides to be a boy, we have to make a decision about whether or not to cut a piece off his tiny body within days of his birth.

Coming into this parenthood partnership, I was firmly set against circumcising any boy to whom I gave birth. I soon found out Toby was firmly set for it. Over the course of this pregnancy, we have re-visited the question repeatedly and with increasing frequency as the birth closes in. While I cannot imagine cutting our newborn unnecessarily, Toby cannot imagine subjecting our older child to the locker-room and hygiene torments of an intact foreskin.

Our ultimate goal is a shared one, of course: neither of us wants to cause undue harm to our to-be-determine son. This is good to realize. I have been poking around on the internet and asking friends and family with boy children about their thinking. What I have discovered is that it is more than a choice, more than a series of considerations. It is a full-scale cultural and medical debate. Conflict, even.

Those on the side of circumcision rely on hygiene issues and medical evidence of increased infection in uncircumcised boys and men as the main crux of their argument. However, the cultural implications are stirred right into the mix. One line of reasoning I have heard a few times is “boys should look like their daddies.” In addition, the struggle of being somehow different is cause for concern when thinking about boys in their teen years, comparing themselves with other boys and becoming sexually active. This camp suggests the surgery, if done in the first week or two of life, is virtually painless, heals almost 100% of the time without problems, and causes no lasting harm.

Those opposed to circumcision dispute the evidence about hygiene and medical problems. The majority of the world’s boys and men are uncircumcised, and apparently it is possible to teach a boy to clean himself properly even if his foreskin is intact. Boys should look like their daddies? Ridiculous, they say. Daddies are big, hairy, smelly men with so many secondary sex characteristics, no pre-adolescent boy is going to look a thing like his daddy sexually, in his penis or otherwise. By the time he is old enough to compare himself to his father, how often are they going to be naked together? Further, the overall number of circumcisions is decreasing in this country, and the number of people moving here from places that do not circumcise is increasing. This means that in the locker rooms of America, intact boys will have less trouble find others like them.

Further, this camp cites all sorts of evidence about the true pain and harm of the surgery. It may cause problems with nursing, botched circumcisions can lead to a lifetime of pain and problems, and ultimately, lasting harm may emerge in the form of sexual difficulties related to an early experience of genital trauma.

One friend told me she felt so strongly about not cutting her son when he was born, she would have left her husband if he had insisted. It is good for me to realize neither Toby nor I have so fierce an opinion on the matter, leaving us room for negotiation and discussion. If we disagreed about the appropriateness of beating our children, perhaps we would find reason to split. But then, this is exactly what my friend considers circumcision to be: child abuse.

This debate is not a simple matter of preferences. You like chocolate, I like strawberry, vive la difference, hooray for Ben & Jerry’s. No, this is home birth vs. hospital birth, home schooling vs. public vs. private. Almost everyone holds an opinion on the matter, and many of us hold passions. (Though many friends and family members claim it doesn’t really matter to them what we do, they still do not waste any time explaining in great detail what could befall our innocent child if we make the wrong decision). Ultimately, all parents make the decision hoping – presuming? – their choice will decrease the potential for damage and increase the well-being of their child. As a result, very few doctors or family members or activists say, “Do whatever you feel is right. Any decision is a good one.” Someone is going to be pissed off no matter what choice we make. We just hope it is not our child.

So, I talked to the doc. Do strong medical reasons exist for or against circumcision? His response was three reasons for, one against. First, because hygiene is a real concern, studies point out an increased prevalence for infection in the uncircumcised penis. Second, those infections can kill healthy cells and lead to a remote – but still present – risk for genital cancers. And third, the hygiene and infection problems increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

And against? Well, it seems that cutting off the foreskin actually decreases sensitivity by 25-30%. Wow! “But,” he smiled and shrugged. “We have enough trouble controlling ourselves with the 70% we have left.”

Another trail of inconclusive, though interesting, evidence I have encountered during my non-scientific polling is how many people know an uncircumcised man who had such an array problems in his life, he decided to get circumcised in his 30’s or 40’s. At that point, the procedure is so painful and involved, why would someone choose to do it unless having the foreskin were a real cause for trauma, in and of itself? I find it curious not a single person has yet related an anecdote about a man circumcised as a child having problems in his adulthood.

Which leads me to the ultimate unanswerable question: what is the foreskin for, anyway? No one really knows. Does it exist to protect the delicate genital tissue, serving an important, though mysterious, function? Or, like the tonsils, is it an accessory that has lost its evolutionary usefulness, and now causes more problems than it solves?

In a few days or weeks, Toby and I will meet MooShu in the flesh. We have about a 50% chance of having to make a decision about whether or not to keep that flesh whole.

September 26, 2006: Not So Bad, After All

This ninth month is zipping along much more pleasantly than it should. Because the weather has decided to cooperate and offer us cool breezes and crisp, autumn air, I can go out for a walk or two during daylight hours without feeling like my brains will puff up and crack out of my skull like jiffy-pop. I am pleased to report every window blind in the house is dust-free, the cobwebs have been hoovered into oblivion, and poor Toby had to give up a few precious minutes of football-viewing on Saturday to scour the bird poop off the outside of the windows while I scrubbed unidentified detritus from the screens. I wish I could join a union for pregnant moms and get paid for all this.

Last Wednesday, Toby and I headed to Victor Valley Hospital for an ultrasound and various other tests my doctor ordered without explaining them to me. Apparently, if I show up at the hospital having “contractions” (which is what doc coached me to tell them) and a piece of paper signed by him, I do not have to wait the month my bargain-basement insurance company takes to authorize a trip to Valley Imaging centers, and then wait the other month Valley Imaging takes to find an opening in their busy schedules because they are too cheap to hire a second ultrasound tech. I guess my doctor wanted a picture of the baby before it was crawling.

We arrived at the hospital and I was ushered into a bed by a very nice nurse named Nancy who strapped me to some elastic belts and wrapped a plastic cuff on my arm. The baby sent all sorts of good, hearty signals to the wall of technology beside me, and Nancy brought me apple juice and attempted to explain in layman’s terms what the scrolls of paper oozing from the machine indicated. I was just happy to lie there and read my George Eliot tome. The whole fetal monitoring episode was only supposed to take 15 minutes or so, but because the ultrasound tech was not in yet, I had the pleasure of hanging out in a hospital bed for two solid hours. On the other side of the curtain was a 19-year-old mom with no car to travel to the doctor she was supposed to see for her high-risk pregnancy, so I was feeling pretty blessed during my two-hour stay.

The ultrasound took 30 minutes, and Toby had the pleasure of seeing his offspring move and groove for the first time. The technician was full of bubbles and giggles – I suppose anyone who does not have to come to work till noon would be – and eagerly informed us that our baby was already 7 pounds. She estimated the due date to be October 9, not October 17 as anticipated, and said with a grin that he or she could still gain another two pound by then. Oh, joy! I had been hoping to push a 9-pound mammal out of my yonni.

Even though Victor Valley Hospital is not where I will be delivering, the whole experience of visiting the hospital put my mind at ease. It probably comes as no surprise to the rest of the universe that labor and delivery nurses are a nurturing bunch. I guess I needed to experience their attention and good spirits first-hand to get this. Plus, the tests and monitors were a lot less scary and intrusive than I had feared. I was able to pull the plugs right out of the machine whenever I needed to get up to stretch or go to the restroom, and I was free to roll around on the bed to get comfortable, read, drink, talk to my husband, and nap if the desire struck. I can only hope my next hospital experience is as comforting, considering how much comfort I will certainly be needing when the time comes.

September 17, 2006: Final Countdown

One month until d-day. One month! At OB appointment this week, the doc announced I am 3cm. dilated and the baby’s head is down where it is supposed to be. Toby and I are convinced the little squirt is coming sooner, though we recognize just about every expectant parent hopes for the same.

One month, and the list of tasks I absolutely must finish before the baby comes grows faster than I can cross things off. Finish pregnancy scrapbook. Draft a will. Renew car registration. On and on. Donate my old cellphone, write a thousand overdue notes to friends, pack suitcase for the hospital, cook up a pot of bean soup to freeze for meals this winter. . .

To the rest of the world (and to my former, non-pregnant self), these items perennially appear on the to-do list, and most of us have very little expectation of ever getting them done. But 9^th-month Shannon is a different creature altogether. The nesting compulsion is as powerful as the instinct for reproduction itself. It may be true that I have “worked” very little during my pregnancy, but this work is more constant and demanding than any job I have ever held. I wake up with must get busy buzzing as persistently as a bedside alarm. No late sleep for me. I have to de-scale the humidifier and prepare Christmas gifts for the extended family.

One month is also a wake-up call to whatever remaining sense of freedom Toby and I have as a couple. With summer camp officially over and my dear husband home before dark most evenings now, I am itching to go out and do. . . stuff. I’m not sure what stuff, exactly, but I have a gnawing awareness of impending, all-encompassing domesticity. Before it descends, we should hop in the car and zip down to the beach or go out and devour a steak at Logan’s without planning it. Unfortunately, our penchant for spontaneity grows in inverse proportion to my desire to set foot out of the house. Why should I want to go lumber along the sticky seashore, battling abdominal cramps and forever seeking out a comfortable place to pee?

Not to mention having to answer the list of questions from delighted strangers for the zillionth time. “When are you due? Is it a boy or a girl? Is it your first?” And forget trying to contain my snotty remarks when someone squeals, yet again, “You’re so huge! Is it a big baby, or are you having twins?” 

I feel like someone secretly appointed me the ambassador of late pregnancy. No matter my grumpiness, fatigue, or general physical malaise, I am somehow expected to plaster a smile across my face and answer diplomatically, if not with outright glee. It is also an expectation of this ambassadorship to engage in extended conversations with total strangers at the post office or in supermarket checkout lines about intensely personal choices regarding labor, insurance, in-laws, baby names, and my body in general. Can’t I just buy my string cheese and toilet paper and go home?

Truth be told, home is where I want to be during this last month. Finally, thank heaven above, the weather has shifted into autumn mode. Cool evenings leave Toby begging for flannel sheets, and me still holding out in percale as I relish the unexpected joy of cool skin and goose-bumps. A breeze blows most of the day now, and the sun is a welcome treat rather than a razor-sharp intrusion. My activity level has shrunk down to three short walks a day. With summer’s end, Jim plans to drain the pool and I say farewell to freestyle laps and water aerobics. The timing is good. I can now take my yoga mat and birth ball out to the back deck and stretch in the fall air, letting baby kick and wiggle along with me as we get ready for our introduction.

The daddy-to-be diligently reads What to Expect: The First Year

Shannon chills out with nephew Aiden during an August trip to Dallas

Toby smoothes the ruts in our driveway to make it safe for wobbly pregnant ladies and for a jogging stroller -- soon to emerge from the attic.

August 26, 2006: Wildlife Update

Two different rattlesnakes blocked my path from house to car on a single day last week. The first I discovered coiled up behind me and rattling to beat the band just as I pulled the front door locked behind me. The menacing creature was only about 3 feet from my bare calves. Despite my uncontrollable shaking, I managed to fit the key back in the lock and get inside before it made its next move.

Inside, I stood by the front window and watched as my new neighbor uncoiled and lazily made its way towards the house (and out of my view) until the cavalry arrived. Using a hose and a two-by-four, Jim managed to coax the snake out from its hiding place in the crevice where the siding of the house meets the foundation. Then he blasted it to kingdom come with a shotgun. We found the body out by the woodpile. Snakeburger.

About two hours later, coming back from my afternoon swim, I pulled down the driveway and looked all around for snakes before getting out of my car. I guess I didn’t look hard enough. Just as I stepped out, I saw one – stretched out just about where the first had met its doom – eyeing me. It began to pull itself into its defensive coil just as I leapt back into the car and roared up the driveway. Jim answered the call, but this second snake had the sense to slither back into one of the innumerable brush piles surrounding our house before the guy with the gun arrived.

I have been, understandably, on high alert this week. I have also been doing some reading. It turns out that while rattlesnakes prefer sunning in the daytime around here, they tend to be more nocturnal. Night is when food emerges and is easier to track because a rodent’s body temperature is higher than the surrounding ground. Which means that no time of day or night is safe for us humans, really.

Yesterday, Toby and I took Fenway for an early morning stroll. We spotted a small chipmunk undulating slowly in the brush on the side of the driveway. Baffled, we watched as it stretched then contracted as if waking up from a particularly satisfying nap. But then its body came to a slow halt and, we assumed, died. It was then we noticed a snake hole not six inches away. We can only presume we startled a rattler in the midst of paralyzing its breakfast. We intended to move on and let the thing have its meal, but Fenway decided to claim the chipmunk as her own. She probably figures she deserves it, what with the miles of ground she has covered in the last year chasing the things. She took off with it and presumably buried it wherever she has hidden her purple Barney, countless rawhide chews, and a decapitated Big Bird doll.

I have learned a few things about rattlesnakes, both good and bad for us humans cohabitating with them:

Bad: Of the hundreds of varieties of rattlesnakes around the world, the Western Diamondback is one of the most easily angered and aggressive. Guess which one is our neighbor?

Good: Just about the fastest a rattlesnake can move is 3 miles per hour, and that is going full-boar with a good chance of overheating and dying if it keeps it up for more than a few minutes. This means any human with her wits about her can outrun a rattler simply by walking away. (They strike pretty darned fast, though, so I shall not be overconfident on this count)

Bad: Baby rattlers are notoriously reckless, skittering around during daytime and striking carelessly. And yes, you predicted correctly: rattlesnake hatching season is between August and mid-October.

Good: A rattlesnake’s ability to detect movement through vibrations in the ground is its best-developed sense. They are adept at moving to shelter when they sense a potential predator en route. This means the extra 28 pounds I am currently lugging around should make me feel about like a small black bear on the prowl, and any sensible snake will get lost long before I make my appearance.