Jonas just had his first medical procedure, a surgical repair for hypospadias. Hypospadias is a condition that occurs in approximately 1 in 125 boys. The penis develops in utero between 9 and 20 weeks. Sometimes, the development of the penis stops before its complete. The result is that the urethra opening is located on the underside of the penis rather than on the tip. In Jonas' case, the opening is in the distal area, right under the head. And rather than having a complete foreskin, he only has a partial foreskin on the top of the penis. Apparently, his penis head looks like a shovel instead of a nicely rounded head. It hasn't affected anything practical like his ability to urinate.
In this procedure, our pediatric urologist extended the urethra to the tip of the penis (it has previously been located just under the head) by pulling together skin. He then completed a circumcision of the partial foreskin. When I changed the first diaper, I was horrified at what seemed to be a barbaric butchery of my son's most sensitive and delicate area. I was stuck. I felt like a bad mother for exposing our son to this pain when his penis and urethra seemed to work just fine. But all the doctors we consulted (I asked 3) told us this was medically necessary, and he would be emotionally scarred for life if we didn't do this.
When I was in law school, I wrote a paper in an international human rights class about genital mutilation, specifically, female circumcision. Basically, certain African cultures believe that a girl's genital area should be surgically altered in order to fit within social and cultural norms. How is this different? Ed would be quick to remind me that our pediatrician mentioned potential fertility problems for Jonas as an adult if no repair were performed. But I don't really buy that. His urethra was just below the penis head. How could this significantly affect sperm from fertilizing an egg?
The whole event felt traumatic. I'm not sure it was the right decision. However, once he's healed, and I know everything will be okay, I will probably agree that it was the right decision. Right now though, I'm very torn.
1 comment:
hi there, i just read this post as i was doing search on hypospadias. my son has this condition and the description you gave is the same as my son's. i hope all is well now and that your son has healed. i see you haven't updated your blog in awhile, so if you read this, please post on ho become it all went, i am curious to know as my son will be undergoing the same procedure shortly, and i have become worried to the point of depression, and just want everything to be ok.
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