Circumcision is a huge No-No in the home birth community. Most women who have homebirths choose not to circumcise because it is seen as unnecessary surgery, among other reasons. However, anyone who knows Larry and I know that we typically don't follow anybody's set of rules haha ;)
I spoke to the new pediatrician when I interviewed her and asked her about the circumcision. I wasn't sure how it was supposed to get done if we weren't in the hospital and like I said before, it's not common with a HB, so it's hard to find information about it. She suggested a mohel. A mohel is a Jewish person trained to give a circumcision. She gave me a couple of names and also recommended a pediatric urologist. The urologist will not perform a circ until the baby is 6 months old and we did not want to wait that long. I got in touch with a mohel who is an Ob/Gyn in Vinings. She was super nice and explained that she would come to our house and do the circumcision here. She would bring numbing meds for him. I immediately told her that we were not Jewish, but that wasn't a problem. For Jewish families, she does the ceremony for the family, but for us it was just the circumcision.
Let me tell you, when I got off the phone with her and let it sink in that not only was I going to give birth in my home, but my son would be circumcised here too, I had to take a breath. We've really gone off the deep end now is what I thought to myself.
Cost of the birth and everything else was a big factor for us. However, after looking at what we paid out of pocket for Jared's circumcision, it ended up being the same amount for the mohel to come to us. (The same with the home birth- insurance doesn't cover HB, but the amount we would have paid out of pocket for the hospital was the same as what we paid to be at home.)
We could have given Grayson the vitamin k shot and the mohel could have come within 2 days of his birth. However, after reading about the shot and vitamin k in general, we decided to give him the oral version of vitamin k and wait until his 8th day of life for the circumcision. This is biblical and for a reason- a baby's natural level of vitamin k (which assists in clotting) is highest on the 8th day of life.
So Wednesday at 12:30 pm my dad came and took Isaac and Jared to McDonald's. The mohel came around 1 and we had towels laid on our kitchen table. We put a pillow down for him to lie on and covered that with a towel as well. The mohel was super nice and explained everything and talked to us. She poured a liquid anesthetic on him and suggested that we give him some gauze dipped in juice. He LOVED that! Larry held his legs and I stayed up by his face so I could make sure that he kept the gauze in and to talk to him or whatever I could do. I didn't want to see it, obviously. It was so quick that I didn't even know she was done. He cried, but he cried a LOT worse for the PKU shot. We had gauze and ointment with a new diaper. The whole thing, from the time she walked in until she left, was about 20 minutes and the actual circumcision was only a minute.
I nursed him as soon as she left and he kept whimpering, so we gave him a touch of Tylenol. That knocked him out! He is doing great today and the circumcision looks good as well! I'm just relieved that it's over with- I was far more scared about that and how he would do than I was about the actual home birth!
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