The beautiful "party tree" in our Hobbit like Shire that we luckily live in...

This week in the health news have been more headlines about circumcision being an important "tool" in the fight against 2 more STD's : Herpes & HPV. Of course, again, this info was based on the African studies. Studies that were done in ways that we could never do them in the US. I think its weird (of course!) to cut a newborn based on the premise that he might be promiscuous and I also think its weird to cut them knowing that in the time between now and the time he is sexually active the could easily have a cure for all of these diseases.

I also don't believe these studies are even true. Here in the U.S. we have an astronomically high rate of HPV, 80% of the women my age have it, and yet the partners of these women are from the generation that had a 90% circ rate. Again, they cut some African men, left others intact, left them alone & checked them later on. The cut men were home healing for up to 2 months after the surgery!

Here is what a guy named "Perspective" said on my mothering board today about it:

"We are a culture trying to find reasonings to continue practicing one of our most outdated traditions. And in the process are wasting the time of researchers and doctors, money, and taking unneeded risks with men's health.

Its time to let the circ issue die, and let the practice of circumcision reseed to the same level of importance as mall piercings, and dive bar tattoo's."

So well said! Its obviously a tradition that is dying out as educated parents question the practice of removing healthy tissue (that has many functions) and so the medical establishment sees a huge loss of income & is happy to do anything to keep it going in America, even though its been virtually abandoned in Canada, the UK & Australia.

Last night I was lying on my side and I had my hand on my belly for a minute because bedtime is baby's craziest time of the day. All of a sudden I felt a fist hit me in the hand! It was bizarre and kind of creepy, but cool. The last 2 times I had the placenta completely covering the front so I never got exact parts, but this time I have a very high placenta so its been easy to tell exactly how little boy is positioned in there, and that fist was so obvious! Life in utero is definitely really life!

I am back from my 36 week dr visit today. I like the dr, he is the senior partner in the practice and very very sweet to my boys. He let me break their rule about doing a GBS test at 36 weeks and I can wait a week to do it, so I don't have to have a pelvic exam with my kids!
Needing to have this baby surgically is tough, but I brought up all of my worries and he gave a lot of attention to each one, and I feel OK about it all. I have to dig deep after my appointments and re-connect with the little guy and remember that I am strong and healthy and we will get through this & enjoy meeting him and taking care of him so much.

I'm weird, I love this part of pregnancy. I am so damn big! 193 lbs last week and still growing. I wish I could maintain my size better, but I kind of don't care. After the kidney/bladder drama all of my typical pregnancy complaints are NOTHING in comparison to that. My little guy kicks and has hiccups and just gets bigger all the time. I hope he is a lot like The Creature & Teeny, and is quiet and easy. Jakob was more of a fussy guy but that's only b/c I had no clue what I was doing when it came to feeding him.

Here are some recent pictures:

10 Years

Our 10th wedding anniversary was last Friday night, at this French restaurant in the countryside of Virginia. It wasn't that rural, we didn't want a long drive, but it was in the fancy neighborhood where Wonder Woman lives. My parents took the kids all night and we slept in, and went out to a fattening breakfast too. Dinner was amazing, not a snobby place, great food, great lighting ( important to me!)

Things I've learned in 10 years of marriage:

-Not much!
-I do know that my mom, who has been married to my dad for 37 years, says the key to a healthy marriage is to have a spirit of service to your partner. If both people are working to make each other happy, then everybody's happy!
-I aim for the above, sometimes I succeed, sometimes not
-Definitely present a united front in front of the kids, not easy & I don't always succeed, but its worth a try & disagreements can be talked out quietly & respectfully in the other room before re-uniting the front.
-support your spouse when he wants to start brewing beer, it may seem like a waste of $$, but it could also turn out great!
-I'm still learning

http://www.ugpulse.com/articles/daily/news.asp?about=Research%20says%20implementing%20male%20circumcision%20challenging&ID=8548

Since all the hoopla about circumcision preventing HIV (African studies claimed it was up to 60% protection against female to male transmission) I have been finding a lot of the research pretty suspect. For example, the 2 main researchers in the African studies had tried for over a decade to prove their hypothesis here in the U.S. to no avail. We have a much higher rate of HIV than Europe and we have a majority circumcised adult male culture & Europe has a 95% intact population. Its also insulting to all of the American men that are dead b/c of AIDS that circumcision could have prevented HIV. No American man would trust that his lack of skin would keep him safe, yet we expect Africans to believe that and then, use that same logic to have one reason left to convince Americans to cut their new babies.

The complications of circumcision have always been underreported and I always thought the numbers were way too low. I have personally seen buried penis (scary!),bleeding problems, infections & adhesions in otherwise healthy babies that I know. So, a Ugandan paper finally is reporting on the real rates of complications and shedding light on the real reason these studies showed a higher rate of transmission in the intact group-----the cut group was too busy healing to go out on the town!


I think most medical studies done in Africa are the worst form of colonialism. I hate that people are used in this way and I wish more Americans, esp. doctors & nurses would think more deeply before using these flawed studies to back up recommending surgery on perfectly healthy babies. Haven't we gotten past the point in medicine where we amputate healthy tissue to prevent disease?

As annoying as it is to cut & paste the link, I highly recommend it, I try & try & blogger never makes links work for me!