The Trifecta

For whatever reason, children born of my womb are brought to this earth with crooked wieners.

There I said it.  My children, both beautiful boys, both had crooked wieners.  Penises.  Winkies.  Whatever you want to call them.  You just wouldn't call them straight.  The operative word here is HAD.

While still in the hospital following Kaeden's birth, the attending pediatrician came in to give me a run down on my brand new baby.

She started out, "He's perfect!  His vitals have been good, he's responding and eating well, there's not much to report on him.  However, there is one small thing, he has a crooked penis..."

At which point I just kind of chuckled to her and thought, "That's a random joke to tell, but whatever, I'm on pain meds, maybe I heard her wrong."

The pediatrician stopped, looked at me, and continued, "it's a rather common condition and will require surgical correction at six months, but other than that, he's the picture of perfection."

Ummm, what?

She wasn't joking.

Kaeden had a condition called chordee which basically meant there was a tendon along his penis that was taught and caused his wiener to curve unnaturally.  In his case, to the side.  He also had a pretty severe case of torsion which means that same tendon was corkscrewed much like a pig's tail.

At six months, he went in for a quick procedure, and came out a brand new man.  Literally.

There were many jokes in the family, comments on how we'll always have to tell our son that he was surgically altered down there, yada yada.  All in all, it ended up being no big deal [well, that is to everything but our pocketbook], and we were glad to have the whole ordeal behind us.

Enter the birth of Carter.

I had a lot of alone time with Carter in the hospital since Jeff was busy taking care of Kaeden who was also battling a cold.  For the first day or two I remember looking at Carter's manhood and thinking, "Hmmmm.... that's slightly reminiscent."  But I pushed it off figuring I didn't really know what one was supposed to look like at this stage of life, so maybe I was just imagining things.

One night Jeff came up to the hospital to spend some time with Carter and I.  While changing a diaper Jeff said, "Do you think his wiener looks a little crooked?"

Oh boy.

The next morning the attending pediatrician came in, and began the spiel, "Carter looks great!  His blood sugars have finally stabilized, he's eating and sleeping well, he's just great!  He does have one minor thing though, although it seems to be a pretty mild case, his penis is a little crooked which is a condition called Chordee."  As Jeff and I listened nodding our heads [apparently not looking surprised at all], she stopped and said, "I'm sorry, did someone already come in here and tell you all this?"

Jeff and I explained that we'd been through all this with our first child, and asked a few questions to refresh our memory of what the routine would be.

She then stopped us and said, "His brother had it too?!?"  Apparently that's unheard of.  It's a common condition, but extremely rare to see it appear in siblings.  Something that was reiterated to us by the rest of the hospital staff over and over.

Yay!  My boys have the wonder-winkies of the WORLD!!

Is it weird that Jeff and I felt just a little bit of relief at the news?  Think about it, no longer did we have to worry about one brother making fun of the other brother's wiener in a heated argument.  It was seriously something we had worried about.  But now we were in the clear!

Whenever we tell someone of our boys' "conditions" we often get a look of, "Hmmm....must be hereditary then," and then they kind of eye Jeff like, "What you packin' brother?"  So Jeff and I will go into an amicable volley of whose side of the family the defect comes from. Truth be told, genetics has nothing to do with it. Hence the surprise that brothers would both have it. But still...I blame Jeff. He's the one with the same bits and pieces. The defect HAS to come from him. AMIRIGHT?

In all seriousness, it IS a VERY common condition.  We'd never heard of it, but start talking about it with people, and EVERYONE knows SOMEONE who knows SOMEONE who has had it.  And even though it is a surgical procedure under general anesthesia that your child undertakes at the tender age of 6 months, in the grand lottery of birth defects, these crooked wieners tend to be No. Big. Deal.

At least we've been lucky enough they haven't.

So in early October we set out for Round Two of our Primary Children's Urological Department Surgical Experience.

This time though, we opted to have the procedure done Primary Children's newest location in Riverton.

Dude.  If your child ever needs to visit Primary Children's.  Opt for the Riverton location.

The uptown location was great.  Don't get me wrong.  But the Riverton location was AMAZING.

The facility is just wonderful.  Organized. Open.  Calming.

The staff, amazing.  Did I mention that they had doughnuts and hot chocolate for the parents in the waiting room?  Not to mention Xboxes, flat screens, rag mags for the moms, etc.

All around, just a great experience.

Plus, it was not busy there.  With Kaeden's surgery there were kids checking in for procedures like crazy.  At Riverton, we hardly saw another family.  In the pre-operative waiting room we had the place to ourselves.  It was nice.  Calming on our nerves, and soothing for Carter.

Okay.  Endorsement over.

Our morning started early, where Carter got tagged, and we waited for further instructions.

Lucky for us, he remained a rather happy baby even though he hadn't been able to eat for a long time. Well, longer than those chubby thighs usually allow anyway.

The next step was getting him changed into his little surgical gown, taking some vitals, and just making sure he was physically ready for the procedure.

He kept giving me faces like this one. Which just tore my heart up. It's as if he's saying, "Mommy, what exactly is going on here?"

Or this one which says, "Guys, ummmmm.... I'm not so sure about this."

But for the most part he just put on a brave face.

You know me.... I just HAD to:

Part 1

Part 2

The next step was the pre-operative waiting room. I felt like we waited there FOR-EV-ER. We were bumped back a little [like an hour], but I think my nerves were on edge because Carter had been so good up to this point, I just didn't know how much longer he'd hold out. 

But he was good.

We quietly played,

And watched the bubbles,

Played some more,

And then dozed off to sleep.

Soon enough it was Carter's turn to walk away in the arms of a stranger, and go through his procedure with the protection of someone else. As a parent, it's a hard thing to put your trust into. Being my second go around, I had all the confidence that my little guy would be okay.

After about an hour they came back to tell us that he was out of surgery and everything went well.

The doctor then came back and explained what he'd found. You see, in the realm of "disorders of the baby winkie" there are three things that can go wrong. Chordee [crooked], torsion [twisted], and a one new to us, hypospadia. Hypospadia is when the actual hole on the baby manhood is in the wrong spot. I know. Whoever knew that was a possibility? In the days leading up to Carter's procedure I read over our packet of info getting us ready for the big day, and kinda chuckled that we were acutely familiar with two of the three disorders that a baby wiener can experience. Little did I know, we'd find out that between our two offspring, we were three for three. Apparently Carter's mild case of chordee also accompanied a minor case of hypospadia. It was major enough to be noticeable, but minor enough to not be correctable. Still not sure whether or not that's a good thing.

After Carter was placed in a recovery room they allowed me to be with him, and then once he was in his own recovery area, Jeff joined us.


Now let me tell you. Going back to see Kaeden when he had the procedure done, I didn't know what to expect. Lying on a large hospital bed was just this little tiny fella, still out from all the anesthesia. I stroked his face and talked softly to him as he slowly began to wake up. He struggled as he came out of the anesthesia, and I calmly fed him a bottle of sugar water. Once he was stabilzed, and knew his mommy was there, he laid with me, and we rocked and recovered. All in all, it was heart-breaking, but calm and quiet.

Carter, well, Carter was a whole 'nother experience.

Having gone through it once, I THOUGHT I knew what to expect. I was wrong.

The doors opened and I was immediately faced with two nurses trying to calm down a screaming baby. The baby is fighting against them, and writhing all around. It took me a minute to realize, that was MY baby.

The nurse looked at me with shock and blurted out, "I've never seen a kid come out of anesthesia that quickly! He literally popped open his eyes and grabbed this bottle straight from my hands. He sucked it down in less than a minute!"

Ummmm...yeah lady. Have you seen the size of this kid?!?!

There was nothing calm or serene about Carter. He was a fighter and wanted everyone to know it. He'd kick and writhe and nearly rip his IV out of his foot. I'd try to calm him, and he'd just reach for me to hold him, a tangle of cords and wires around him. Eventually we got to our own area and I was able to feed him and try to calm him.

Kid wasn't having it. He wanted to go home.

So we did what every good parent would do. We allowed the nurse to sedate him.

I was just so worried he'd harm himself by pulling out his IV or ripping a suture. Shell-shocked, the medical staff agreed.

After a bit, there was calm:

And Peace:

And the world was good again.

Quickly later, Carter was cleared to go home, and we were off sporting the new jammies my grandma had found him.

Lucky for us, his recovery was quick and minor. In fact, his whole procedure ended up being a lot less invasive than Kaeden's.

Here's hoping that if we ever go for baby #3, a wiener isn't part of the equation. Jeff and I already agreed that if an ultrasound ever reveals we're having another boy, we'll start a "wiener correction fund" immediately. We'll gladly accept donations.