Another woman has joined. :) Long intro inside.

[wifeandmama]

That woman would be me. My hubby was circ'd at birth. His mother is an emotionally sensitive type, so I imagine that if she knew what really happened and that it didn't just have to be the "standard thing" that was done, he would be intact.

We are extremely early in our restoration journey, as in we just talked about it yesterday, lol. He has long work hours and doesn't "do" the message board thing, so he is having me order him some supplies and stuff. I'm glad that there is this message board here so that I can glean some tips to pass on to him, since I am by no means a message-board virgin (although I'm not using my usual name, to remain somewhat anonymous on this one at least).

He and I have been married for 6 years. Even before I met him, I found out that circ'ing was unnecessary and I hoped that I could convince whoever my spouse ended up being to leave any sons born to us intact. We had the discussion here and there, and he was pro-circ, but not passionately so. I asked him what his reasons were for wanting to circ any sons, and I gave some valid counter-arguments.

In 2006, we were pregnant with our first child. We choose to wait until birth to find out the gender of our children. We had the circumcision discussion, but never did come to a firm answer. Our daughter was born in December, and she is intact since we live in the USA and for now, FGM on minors is illegal here and has been for quite some time.

In early 2009, we were pregnant with our second child. We had the circ'ing discussion again and by now, I was a little more firm w/ my reasons and was prepared to fight if hubby still said he wanted any sons circ'd. At one of our late prenatal visits (I think it was the next-to-last one before our child was born), our care provider asked us if we would be circ'ing if the child turned out to be a boy. I had done all I could at that point, and just left it up to God, so I turned to hubby and let him answer, hoping for the best. I did a little happy dance when he said, "I guess not."

Our son was born 7 months ago and is peacefully intact.

[Americut]

Hello. That's great to hear about your intact son, and how your good sense was surely an important factor in preserving his body. Also good to hear that your husband seems to be open to the idea of restoring. I can say from experience that this will benefit BOTH of you.

Thanks for sharing with us. Your husband may not post on message boards, but something tells me he will be reading this one with you in the near future.

[wifeandmama]

Originally Posted by Americut

Hello. That's great to hear about your intact son, and how your good sense was surely an important factor in preserving his body. Also good to hear that your husband seems to be open to the idea of restoring. I can say from experience that this will benefit BOTH of you.

That's so great to hear. I can hardly wait. We'll probably have another intact child or two before hubby's restoration journey is getting close to its end.

Originally Posted by Americut

Thanks for sharing with us. Your husband may not post on message boards, but something tells me he will be reading this one with you in the near future.

LOL. If, by "read", you mean "listen to me read a few posts to him that I think he'll find exceptionally interesting", then yes, lol.

[z726]

What sort of tips would he need you to pass on? We're able to give all kinds of methods, instructions on how to use 'em, and all kinds of other advice to help him along with it.

Wouldn't be the first time I've seen a wife at this site sneaking information off it to her husband. Have him drop in and say hi one of these days.

[peterpink]

Welcome and well done!

[greg_b]

Welcome and good to have you! Glad you kept your son intact.

Cheers!

[4Foreskin]

wifeandmama,

Welcome to the forum. It is great to have another female voice on this forum. Most people here like to have a female point of view. It helps provide some ballance.

Thank you for working so hard to keep your son intact. He may never know how lucky he is to have a mother who looked out for him before he was born and didn't take medical advice at face value.

I also think you husband is quite lucky to have a wife who is willing to help him in his FR efforts.

Good luck to you and your husband,

[wifeandmama]

Ok so he has a sense of humor. I was fixing a bowl of oatmeal this morning, and he came in and grabbed my hand and was like "Let me see that for a second." Then he plays like he's going to tug my thumb, lol.

[wifeandmama]

Originally Posted by z726

What sort of tips would he need you to pass on? We're able to give all kinds of methods, instructions on how to use 'em, and all kinds of other advice to help him along with it.

Wouldn't be the first time I've seen a wife at this site sneaking information off it to her husband. Have him drop in and say hi one of these days.

"sneaking" lol.

Regarding the sort of tips... I guess right now would be motivation to keep going, if it feels like it's taking too long. Because right now, we're both all excited about it and stuff, but I don't want it to turn into a chore later on. As for methods, I did a tiny bit of manual pulling on him last night. Like such a tiny amount that it probably didn't even do anything, lol. But from what I was reading, the skin needs to be under enough tension to really feel the tension, but not to the point where it would be painful, right? I kept asking him last night "Does this hurt? Does this hurt?" He kept saying no so I'd pull a tiny bit more. I don't have a penis so I don't know how gentle one has to be with it.

It was funny b/c we had a daughter first, so diaper changes for her were no big deal to me, because I knew how gentle I needed to be with her, even when the poop got everywhere. But then our son was born, and when he'd poop, sometimes it would get on his penis and between his penis and scrotum, and I didn't want to hurt him, but obviously I had to clean him, too, so I usually ended up taking way too much time being too gentle. I finally asked hubby one day how gentle I needed to be, lol.

As for methods, after reading around on here and thinking about hubby's current state and stuff, I think that he can start w/ a tapeless method. I talked to him about the different ones out there and showed them to him and we decided to go with the TLC-X, since it could be used as a bi-directional device AND as a simple tugger.

[wifeandmama]

And a couple of other funny things before I go do some work.

Like I said in my intro, I'm far from being a message-board virgin, so last night, I went to one of the other boards I'm a member of and did a search on restoration, to try to get more perspectives from women. And I found several posts by Ron and Greg, lol. Sadly, that particular form no longer hosts discussions on restorations, so everything I found had been long since locked, but the information that was there was still helpful.

And the other funny story is that several years ago, I came across the title of the book "The Joy of Uncircumcising." I think it was online somewhere that I saw it. And I had an immediate though... "well, we don't need THAT book b/c hubby is cut. This book is for intact men." But wow, what a false assumption that was! If I had just opened it up and even read a few pages, who knows? Maybe we could have been nearly finished with our restoration journey today instead of just starting it.

But, no sense in dwelling on the past and the what-might-have-beens. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.

(Pardon the novels... I tend to be a bit loquacious.)