My name is Jessica, and I'm 24 and have a 2yr old little boy. I'm also pregnant again, Yay! I was one of the uninformed mothers who thought and was told that mutilation was right and necessary and just meant to be because he was a male. I didn't do my research until my son was about 4 1/2 months old. I researched day and night and the truth was horrifying. I lived with my parents at the time and my stepfather constantly told me I was wrong for thinking I did the wrong thing and, "He's alive and healthy, right?" Inside my heart was breaking, and I couldn't talk to anyone about it without them saying I was literally nuts....
Know better, do better! I know people will judge but I feel like a lioness protecting her cub, and I am doing what I think is right.
I do plan to sit my son down when I feel he is the right age and apologize to him simply for not being informed. If the baby I am pregnant with now happens to be a boy, I will keep him intact and explain later why they are different. My significant other worries my son will feel different, and I do too, but I explained to him that's no reason to cut our second baby if the baby is a boy, and also I refuse at all costs to circ again knowing what I know now.
I would also explain that there is no need to feel weird or bad about himself because he looks different than his brother and also the same to my intact boy that he isn't weird because he looks different than his daddy does. That that is the way he is supposed to look but mommy was uninformed and didn't know any better.
So, I still struggle with this everyday and I wish someone had come to me while I was pregnant with facts. I cry about it especially now being pregnant and emotional. I stare at him at bath time and during potty training and I can't help but hate myself for making such a final decision in my sons life.
He would cry every diaper change from birth until about 3 months old and I never understood why until I started researching. No one believed that was the reason why but as a mother, you just know and it was obvious but too late.
I am a regret mom but my son is still perfect despite being altered in such a barbaric way. I now educate moms and dads who are uninformed about circumcision and I always will.
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email your circumcision regret story to:
regrettingcircumcision@gmail.com
But what do you do when you are informed and you do come to that pregnant mother and she refused to hear the truth, refused to look into the available information, refuses and shoves you aside. It happens so often that someone does know the truth and is vehemently rejected for daring to share it, for daring to save the mother from exactly what you are going through and will suffer with forever - deep regret and sadness. It's heartbreakingly hard work being an activist for the rights of babies. The successes are so sweet because the defeats so often outweigh the babies saved from this pain.
ReplyDeleteWhat would have changed your mind? What information would have opened your eyes? Who could have come to you with it and caused you to listen? These are questions activists like me need to have answers to so we can better help mothers to be that don't know the truth.
If I were told that my son could die from this surgery then that alone would have changed my mind. Im not one of the mothers who thinks its the parents right to make that decision, I did it because I was terrified of not doing it and potential infections which sounds plain idiotic looking back and I wished I wouldve went with my gut...
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