Poor Little Guy

I am hopelessly behind on updating this blog, I know! These posts will be a little out of order, but I'm going to work backwards to try and catch y'all up a bit, starting with yesterday...

Poor little Liam got circumcised yesterday. That might be too much information for some of you, but it's kind of a funny story. Apparently here in Australia it's not very common to have boys circumcised anymore, so finding someone to do the procedure was a bit tricky.

My OB is American and is fully qualified to do it (he's also Jewish), but the Catholic hospital where I gave birth doesn't allow the doctors to perform circumcisions there. I asked some of my girlfriends who have little boys, but none of them had had their sons circumcised, so not much help there. My OB then recommended a Muslim doctor who mainly performs them for Brisbane's Islamic community.

I called the number for Sunnybank Hospital where Dr. Mohammed Khatree usually works, but when I explained that we wanted the appointment for my son's circumcision, I was met with a serious, "Oh, he doesn't do those here. You'll have to call this number." The receptionist who answered the second number told me that "those appointments" are only made on Monday afternoons and must be paid for prior to the procedure....$300...CASH ONLY. Feeling more and more like I was undergoing some covert op for the government or (more likely) a shady drug deal, I made the appointment.

So yesterday, I jotted down the unfamiliar address of the clinic and drove to the appointment with an unsuspecting baby in the backseat, $300 cash, and a promise from Matt to meet me there (I wasn't willing to brave it alone). The clinic was in Logan Central. For those of you living in Brisbane, 'nuff said. For you Jackson folk, picture the strip mall across from the old Northgate Primos restaurant. For those of you unfamiliar with both areas, let me just say, I made sure the doors were locked and after parking, I sat in the car, staring at the building and wondering if I should just turn around and go home, and leave Liam's foreskin in tact.

But Matt arrived, and we met the very nice and capable-looking doctor and were escorted to a very clean and sterile procedure room. Liam was not thrilled being stuck with the local anesthetic and being held down for the first part of the procedure, but the anesthetic kicked in and he calmed down for the second half. Poor little man was definitely traumatized by the whole process, though. I nursed him before we left the clinic, and he had this look of "Can I please just be left alone now?!" He fell asleep on the way home and slept deeply until about 9 o'clock this morning, waking only for feeds.