What would you do?

So we all know about Ace's umbilical hernia, right? (You don't? Oh. Here's the explanation, and here's the picture. It got bigger than that.) The doctor thinks it's gone away. I'm not completely convinced, because it still seems to bulge a little when he laughs or cries, but I'll defer to the doctor's opinion on this one.

This is good news, because the risk of bowel strangulation is eliminated. (I won't explain further, but just know that it hurts lots and results in emergency surgery for babies. Bad.) However, I thought that when the hernia closed up, all the skin would go away, sucked into a nice little hole that would make a belly button. It ain't. There's still a good bit of it left, as the hernia was pretty big and the skin got stretched, and I don't think it'll ever go away by itself.

So. Do I opt for surgery for my baby boy or let him have a bunch of extra skin falling out of his bellybutton for the rest of his life or until he elects to have it removed, subjecting him to mockery from his friends and classmates? I'm leaning towards surgery, although I know it'll be painful for him (and for me too, let's be honest). I can still get insurance to pay for it, because my doctor and I would like some verification that the hernia is actually closed. But is that vain? Is that a lesson I want him to learn? Get surgery so people don't make fun of you? Then again, do I want my son to have an easily correctable abnormality just so I can teach him a lesson about open-mindedness and acceptance of others, different though they may be? I can teach him that without him feeling self-conscious during his vulnerable teenage years, can't I? Am I over-thinking this? Parenting gets a lot harder than this, doesn't it?

At one point I thought, hey, people have outies. Then I looked up some pictures of outies on the Internet, and his is much bigger than any outie I found. Then I found out that there's a whole community of outie fetishists, and my research ended there.

I'd ask this on the preemie support forum I read sometimes, but I don't really like the people there. Many of them seem to be very bitter and angry about their experiences with prematurity and only want to hear from other people wallowing in bitterness*, and any time someone mentions that their child is a blessing from God, or if they say that they wouldn't trade their child in for the world, or any one of the praises we sing about our children, many of the people on there poop their pants (WHAT? You think your sick, dying child was a blessing from your GOD? Bla bla your GOD is cruel and unjust rarrrrr) and it starts a big kerfuffle. Seriously, every time. Not my scene.

So, what would you do?

*That's not to say that I don't wallow in bitterness on occasion, nor do I think that anyone who's had to watch their child on the verge of death should be denied the right to wallow in bitterness... I just don't feel the need to drag everyone down with me, nor do I feel the need to debase the support system of other grieving parents.