vaginoplasty journal

saw my surgeon today.... he didn't schedule a follow up appt :) I'm done I'm all set! I have a pussy and I'm healed up! there are potential avenues for revision surgery if i wanted it but I'm not thinking about that for a 2 or 3 years at least, , , wow :)

gotta stretch out a bit first with my fingers before putting in the dilator but I'm not getting any pain

but not only do I not see them very often from afar looking at myself in the mirror etc, , , when I'm looking up close at like a nude I've taken of myself, where my labia scars are somewhat on display it's kinda good it's like "yeah that's nice"

it's like how stretch marks are beautiful, I'm more myself now :)

just a heads up in case you're pre surgery and are worried about that too

I'm sure that'll wax and wane but for now that's what feels good

early in recovery is a pretty weird time because you're dilating 3x a day, which knocks you out and hurts... but also it can feel good! personally early dilating was a mix of really good and somewhat painful. thing is that you're feeling these mixed signals in an area associated w pleasure so it can be emotionally confusing to have all that happening at once.

first of all the #1 thing to remember is that Everything Gets Better With Time. your body is really resilient, and you will heal from basically anything that happens in the beginning. (haha do u think ur gonna do anything more wild to ur body than the surgeons already did?)

for me, masturbating was initially pretty difficult because of a few reasons

• hypersensitivity: touching myself on my clit or really anywhere could cause so much sensitivity that light touch would be registered as pain. hypersensitivity is something that you deal with over time by gently touching yourself while looking in the mirror.
• stitches just fucking hurt lmao, it's hard to work around the stitches, especially the ones on your clitoral hood. I never found a solution for this, I was just lucky enough to have my stitches out at 4 weeks instead of 6 because my doc wanted me in for a silver nitrate treatment.
• it's really easy to overdo it... I think like twice or three times I masturbated in a way that caused pain for a day or two afterwards. I AM OKAY NOW AND I HEALED FINE. after talking to a friend I found out that this is actually SUPER normal hahaha. and fwiw this was separately with clitoral stimulation and with a dildo/dilator.
• side note: weirdly enough soft dildos hurt early during recovery and the dilators felt a lot better for penetrative masturbation, but you've gotta b careful with squeezing the dildo/dilator because that's how I overdid it
• also something that feels good in the moment can kinda hurt afterwards

thing is that masturbation is a good way to relieve tension during the first weeks of recovery, and it's also just good for exploring and bonding with your new body. my surgeon's team asked me if I had achieved orgasm or had penetrative sex way before I was "supposed" to do either because they expect that you may be pushing the boundaries of what they suggest.

having my gfs touch my clit and vulva (after washing their hands) was also helpful to deal with hypersensitivity, and was a really vulnerable experience at first. and because I was a little worried about nails hurting I had them finger me with a black nitrile glove in the early stages

you should trust yourself for if something hurts too much or feels good. and if u overdo it just chill out for a lil bit and don't worry you're gonna be fine :)

with all this difficulty and initial pain though.... EVERYTHING IS FINE NOW! sex and masturbation feel great and I have recovered.

little something to ease the anxiety hopefully

and then when I scratch my face I'm like

damn that's my pussy, oh wow that smells good

and then I'm horny

oh my fuck I can still squirt lmao

okay so for the purpose of this tag having a proper timeline, I'm 9 weeks in and I just got fucked like.... actually fucked last night not just tentative gentle sex and wowwwww having a pussy is so good anyway I've been healing pretty quickly and wanted to keep the ledger up to date haha

at this point it sorta has stopped feeling like such a time sink and a burden to have gone through this surgery+recovery :)

can do's:

• sit upright with my donut pillow for long periods and sit upright without it for shorter periods (specifically it's called a "boppy" it's a nursing pillow for the baby to lay on but it works well for this)
• focus during work
• bring in groceries (slowly)
• drive
• orgasm
• have sex
• take a toy/dick bigger than the dilator I'm using

can't do's:

• sit upright all day
• lift tooo much stuff
• taking out the trash and unloading the dishwasher is still difficult but I can do it
• strenuous activity like working out or running or walking super far

last week I went on vacation with my partner (originally my surgery date was supposed to be so much earlier so we planned ahead to have the vacation now) and I got a wheelchair so I didn't have to walk as much. wheelchair is major hacks you absolutely need to get on this , the mobility aid rlly do aid ur mobility fr fr

all my stitches are out!!!! which has greatly reduced pain and made things aesthetically nicer

funny game I have played with my gf a bit to see where I'm at with getting feeling back is: (1) I close my eyes (2) she pokes a place on my vulva and then releases her finger (3) I try to poke the same place where she poked. right now this is easier on one side than the other side which is funny and interesting and I can get within like 1-1.5in of the spot on the difficult side, and right on for the easier side.

I have been able to orgasm 🎉 I think actually the same day the doctor removed a bunch of stitches from the clitoral hood haha. my clit was hypersensitive for a little bit but I have been trying to work around this and kind of touching it lightly while looking at it in the mirror to calm down the nerves. it's still kinda hypersensitive but a lot more manageable now. it's still difficult for someone else to touch certain areas like my stitches, or the center of the clit where it had a stitch.

also I'm onto the third dilator down to the fifth dot which is sick! defo ahead of schedule there lmao. v happy w depth and everything, dilating isn't super painful anymore and I can't feel any open wounds in the vaginal canal. so yeah!!!! things are going really well

it still hurts to sit upright and lifting stuff doesn't cause immediate pain but it causes pain later for sure... sooo I'm still on 600mg of ibuprofen 3x a day lol. the difficulty sitting is honestly my main problem now, that and sometimes generally feeling cruddy still.

anyway, I'm soooo happy w stuff still and wanted to give a lil check-in :)

dr said l'm ahead of schedule!! because I've already been able to orgasm somewhat and I'm getting to the third dilator basically Im winning at recovery and he gave me a good grade so....

VERY MUCH

yeah uh, so basically immediately after surgery and immediately after getting the packing out I got so many moments of "oh my fuck I finally did it, I have a pussy, it's how it's always supposed to have been" and then those are almost instantly balanced out by recovery pain and Real World Shit that keeps u in the moment haha

but the entire time I'm looking at her and being like "omg she's so pretty" and "wow this is so great I have a pussy now" and shit like that!!!

something I couldn't admit before surgery is that post-op pictures were really tough for me to look at and I was worried I would feel the same about myself after surgery for a while. I mean on one hand it makes sense: you're looking at some random person's genitals under bad lighting and generally the pictures are taken soon after the surgery. but at the same time I felt guilty for feeling that way

I'm really happy to say that after surgery I just sorta instantly got this feeling of acceptance for however she looked on that day, my pussy can do no wrong, everything can be fixed with time. and I also sorta retrospectively felt that way about post-op pics.

I think post-op pics were really scary for me ahead of time because I was worried about being in pain and about the swelling and it's not clear how things will work out from post-op pics a lot of the time. but after the surgery you're under the care of doctors, your pain is being managed, I had a strong support system to help me, and all that fear was kinda lifted off my shoulders because I was demonstrably okay despite the open wounds and stuff

anyway yeah I love her :)

there was some phantom limb stuff at first

• need the need to itch a spot -> feel it externally where spot used to be -> hand reaches down instinctively and just fucking whiffs lmaooo. this kind went away pretty quickly for me, the way to get past this kind of feeling is to just try to locate the new location where the spot is. I keep a sense of humor about this one, or get horny about it. by end of week 3 this is pretty much done for me
• I have almost tried to pee standing up one (1) time when I was pretty tired, and that was very funny
• for the first week or so after peeing I kept feeling like I should be shaking something off LMAOO and it just didn't feel right without it, that's p much gone away tho
• re:point 1: the only time this sucks is when it's a spot on your previous scrotum that feels like it needs to be itched because that is now internalllllll so it's nontrivial to reach that area haha
• while walking around naked during the first week it kept feeling like I should have my dick swinging back and forth or bouncing a lil bit or whatever ya know? but nope! no motion whatsoever and that's so weird at first! more because there's an absence of motion that u feel like it really should be there

I would say the main strategies for dealing with proprioception issues is to just touch different areas while looking at them in a mirror, and also by using the body parts. phantom limb stuff has gone away for me mostly so far, not sure how much I'll get it in the future ofc.

I'll say that I used to get phantom pussy feelings during sex and wow those were actually pretty accurate to how having something in your pussy actually feels, did not ever get phantom clit and I don't think I could have predicted what that's like

okay so the timeline is that during the surgery there is packing sewn in to help keep the vaginal canal's shape. it's stitched to the labia and it's really not going anywhere. u have to keep this packing in for 5-6 days so my surgery was on tuesday and I got the packing out monday.

while u have the packing in u have a catheter, honestly I liked that there was a catheter during these first days because even though it's inconvenient, you're really not moving around a lot so it's nice that u don't have to worry about having to get up and go pee

after the packing is taken out (which doesn't hurt, but does feel pretty weird) then you can pee normally and it doesn't hurt!

peeing without the catheter was really easy for me. I've heard some stories of ppl that have difficulty at first because of inflammation, or ppl mentally having to relearn a bit how to pee and having some difficulty there, but I haven't heard of anyone having to go back to the hospital to get a catheter put back in

thought path 1 (wrong): fUCK wow that's gonna take a minute to get used to

thought path 2 (based): 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳

they got those tubes on ur hands and they got those drugs in u , can't even focus ur eyes, u think you can hold focus for long enough to play minecraft? nahhh man

cut open one side of a sandwich bag and now you have a perfectly sized and shaped piece of plastic to hold lidocaine up to your junk