It's Ugly from Day One

When I was pregnant for the second time I wanted a baby boy to join our happy little threesome so badly that I was practically seeing blue. Then when we had an ultrasound performed I was a little creeped out.

"Well, well, it's definitely a BOY!" the ultrasound tech announced. She seemed quite sure of herself.

"You're positive?" Babe asked as if he didn't want to unleash his bridled enthusiasm prematurely.

"No doubt about it, you see this here...yeah, it's a boy. And "it" must be pretty heavy because it's laying on his leg," she said. My excitement died a bit.

"Heavy?" I thought. Oh, nice. I knew to carry a boy I had to carry his, er, "It". But I have never understood the whole ugliness of the little "Its".

So upon announcing the gender of the little alien I had carried for nearly 5 months my sister responded in a way I doubt I'll ever forget.

"So you'll have a penis inside of you for nine months?" She asked with a smirk.

"Oh you're just sick, I never thought of it that way!" I felt a little ill and not because my Nas kept me nauseous most of his time in-utero.

I spent the rest of my pregnancy wondering what it'd be like to deal with "It" and that God-forsaken umbilical cord stump. Oh yuck!

So when Nas was born I realized I really did have to have him circumcised, that thing was ugly enough without a 'hood' covering the tip, there was no way I could look at it in its natural state for years of diaper changing, potty-training, baths and accidental run-ins with the thing. Note: I pray I don't have any accidental run-ins with "It" as Nas grows up, SICK as he would say.

The doctor whisked my baby boy off for his circumcision and the eight hours following were spent in a deep, Tylenol (and pain maybe?) induced sleep. At least that extra skin was long gone, but I did feel so sorry for my newly cut baby boy.

To top off the madness of the "Heavy-Ugly It" we headed home on a sunny November day to complete our family of four when I had to change his wet diaper, and his t-shirt and his sleeper. Why do boys tend to pee outside the diaper ALL of the time? Focus. I opened the tiny strips on the newborn diaper, pulled down the front and heard a "Wrrrr-ip" sound. Then Nas screamed. He screamed, then I cried. I had pulled the front of the diaper away from his "It" only to find "It" was stuck to the diaper. Later, I was advised to slather the diaper in Vaseline to avoid another tragedy. Thank you, Nana.

From that moment forth I knew that those little "Its" are trouble from day one, and they definitely start out quite ugly, with or without the hood. Who knew? And why didn't they tell me?