What Oliver Doesn't Want Me To Write About

Today found us at Children's Hospital again. This time it was planned. Before I go further, please allow me to address my male readers in an apology. What you're about to read may cause you to be a little uncomfortable, to wince a little, and maybe even recoil in horror.

When Ollie was a couple of months old, I called Michael over to supervise a diaper change as I said, "Um, honey, it looks like he has two pee holes."

Michael walked over confidently, used to my occasional uncertainty about how infant male anatomy should look. "No, I'm sure it just looks....oh wait, I think you're right...."

We were given a steroid cream to apply for two weeks, to see if the skin between tiny holes would dissapear and make one normal hole. It didn't work, and off we went to see a urologist. Apparently, when Ollie was growing his little fetus self, his urethra didn't fuse together correctly; there was now a part-urethra that ended in a little reservoir, and a fully-functioning urethra that went all the way to the tip. Too much info for you? No? Try this. The corrective surgery entails snipping the skin in between the holes, and placing a stitch between the two urethras to pull them into one single one.

Oh, I can just see you men now, squinting your eyes shut and covering your ears, as if that would make any difference in what you read. Sorry for the psychosomatic pain.

The surgery was elective. If it wasn't corrected, the burdens would be cosmetic for one thing. "I don't care," I said, pointing out that I don't have a penis and therefore didn't really know if it was a big deal. "Michael, is it a big deal?"

Um, apparently it is. Then the urologist said that if not corrected, his pee stream (sorry for the graphic nature) would be forceful and long. As in, get ready for splattered walls. And that sealed the deal for me. So we decided that for locker room reasons, as well as for potential lifelong cleaning nightmares for his mother and future living companions, we were going to do this thing, and we were going to do it long before he would be able to remember it.

The surgery was simple and quick, though it entailed general anesthesia as well as an epidural- in short, well, it was surgery. I myself have had countless surgeries and procedures, enough to know that I had the easy part. Go to sleep a little nervous, and wake up in pain but with balloons and people right by your side, and then have all of the chocolate milk and mac and cheese your little recovering heart desires until you're all healed up.

The waiting room, now, that's the hard part. I went through that for the first time the summer after Michael and I were married, when he had major kidney surgery. The anxiety, adrenaline, and waiting for news good or bad just about sends you over the edge. The worst part is saying goodbye. Oh, we all know things are most likely going to be just fine. But if we're really honest with ourselves, the people in that waiting room will admit to a sliver of a horrific thought: what if this is the last time I see them?

And today I handed over my baby boy, all happy and curious, clueless about what they were about to do, to the anesthesiologist. A stranger was bringing my child to the operating room to be sedated without me. A very experienced and highly-credentialed stranger, but a stranger none the less. I watched them walk out the door, Oliver playing with his stethescope, and then I lost it.

Things went super-well. The recovery nurse met us in the hall, and she was holding my Ollie, dazed and sleepy. Bless her heart, she told us that Oliver did not shed a single tear the whole time. She held and snuggled him the whole time as he was waking up. It's Nurse's Week, by the way. I'm celebating her, among many. In the single minute we had interacted, she had lifted away every trace of anxiety I had leading up to this day. Oliver was in very good hands.

We were home three hours later. Ollie sailed through, and was back to crawling, guzzling bottles, laughing and waving the minute we were home. You'd never know that this same kid underwent general anesthesia and had his manhood surgically manhandled just hours before. Still, we're giving Tylenol and Ibuprofen liberally. That should make you men feel a little better.