Yeah. Who would have thought.
So sometime in the blur of my time in the recovery room, A informed me that the pediatrician had found an irregularity with Tiny Boy's penis, upon his post-birth inspection. Turns out he has hypospadias and a hooded foreskin (which may or may not be a related condition "chordee"). Not surprisingly (to me, at least), this condition has been linked to IVF/ICSI (research also refutes that link, so who really knows). But I'm not going down that road in this post; suffice it to say that by the time I gave birth I was so worried about major problems with Tiny Boy that an irregularity with his urethra seemed pretty unimportant. Five weeks later, I'm still pretty blase about it, except when I wonder what else might be going on with him that I don't know about.
Anyhoo...we have an appointment with a pediatric urologist later this week, which to my mind is purely informational. Tiny Boy's pediatrician seems to think that surgery is a given, even though there does not seem to be a medical (or even sexual [do I really want to think about my 5-week-old eventually having sex?!]) reason to do so. It basically comes down to the fact that he might not be able to pee gracefully standing up (at least if the condition is as mild as it appears to be). So I find myself--me, teacher of gender studies, opposed to circumcision as a general principle--wondering just how Tiny Boy might feel about his penis when it is, well, not so tiny. It came as no surprise to me that when I googled this condition, hits came up for the Intersex Society of North America, a group that believes intersex children should not receive sexual reassignment surgery without their consent; in that regard, operating on a baby boy for hypospadias for social, rather than medical, reasons is much the same.
There's all kinds of philosophical stuff here for me to work through. In the end, I want what will be best for my son. But not having a penis myself...I'm not really sure what that should be. Will be interesting to hear what the urologist, a penis-bearer and penis-surgeon, has to say.
sorry to hear this but glad that it sounds mild. Hope you can get some good info from the penis-bearing penis surgeon pronto. Thinking of you. Mo
ReplyDeleteUgh -- it's a drag, this penis thing. But the hypospadia is really not a big deal, in fact 2 friends have had little boys with the same issues, and neither were IVF but both were very small when born (one twin, one just premature). I hope the meeting with the penis surgeon goes well; it's probably a bit early to be saddling Tiny Boy with concerns about gender reassignment -- I'd just worry about him peeing on the floor as you try to train him.
ReplyDeleteDealing with penis matters really does feel odd, doesn't it? My husband was so on the fence about circumcision for #1 Son that, the morning I went to the hospital to be induced, just in case it turned out to be a boy, we were still reading about pros/cons and Googling pictures of uncircumcised penises ... since neither of us had seen one in the flesh, so to speak. (I, however, was firmly in the non-circumcision camp.)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about the hypospadias; I thought I recalled reading that there's a correlation between the condition and progesterone supplementation. A child I babysat several decades ago needed repeated surgeries over the course of his childhood and adolescence for a pretty pronounced case--but I do believe it all turned out OK for him. Sounds like it's fairly minor for Tiny Boy, for which I'm glad. It will be interesting for you to find out what would need to be done NOW (or as an infant/small child) for correction, versus what might need to be done in the future if you leave it alone and wait for him to decide later. Best wishes to all of you, and I hope that getting more information will help you gain clarity.
As an SMC with two little penis-bearers running about the house I can tell you that the sooner this is taken care of the better because about ate 2.5, his penis will become his new best friend. I say this with a quizical look as I marvel at the level of bending, pulling, twisting, scrunching, dancing with, bobbing with, and overall play that the little friend endures and isn't hurt. It makes me respect that organ a little bit more now as I see how much joy it brings to a young boy's life. And then, he also gets to aim his pee with it - Wahoo!
ReplyDeleteSo my point is, the sooner Tiny Boy's penis is good to go (bad pun - sorry), the sooner he can have fun with it.
---ST