I DM’d you some details. My recommendation is to start electrolysis yesterday, lol - hair removal takes a very long time and it’s best if you can get at least a year of electrolysis so catch all the hair cycles.

aw, thank you! 🫶

Strictly speaking, a vaginoplasty normally includes a vulvoplasty, but the reverse isn’t always true. A vulvoplasty without a vaginoplasty means no vaginal canal, and so no depth.

Sometimes people will use vulvoplasty to mean a shallow-depth vaginoplasty, I was just specifying I had full-depth (which has a longer recovery time and more risks of complications. Basically with a vulvoplasty / shallow-depth you have labia, a clit, etc. but no vaginal canal. With a full-depth vaginoplasty you have all the things a vulvoplasty provides (labia, clit, etc.) as well as the vaginal canal (as Ada points out).

lol, I have so much work to do once I’ve healed, but in terms of what a vaginoplasty unlocks for me, I definitely look forward to swimming and feeling right / fitting better in my clothes.

Not OP, but i can say 2 years post op it feels weird to think I used to have something there lol

post orchi not having testes was a huge benefit for that - but the empty scrotum would still slap the thighs and make me feel nauseated and upset whenever that happened.

I am on bed rest so I’m not allowed to walk or get out of bed until Friday, so I have no idea yet how walking feels - I am very much looking forward, though - that was one of the biggest sources of genital dysphoria and I can’t wait for it to be gone. I remember post-orchi saying “every step brings joy” because walking used to cause dysphoria and suddenly I could walk differently and feel so much better.

thank you 😊

I was shocked about the time too, I have no idea how the surgeon gets the time that low.

The staff felt similar amazement and talked about how important reducing time under anesthesia is, that risks go up the longer the patient is under and so on. Apparently the surgeon’s top-surgery times are also very low, he works quickly.

Even with the short surgery time, I ended up with numbness in one of my arms from being unconscious and my arm being in the wrong position for too long. The tingling and numbness lasted a day or two before going away, but that was unnerving.

Inversion is a lot quicker than types that use more extensive grafting

thank youuuu 🥰

thanks!! I’ll just be excited to be able to walk around again, being on strict bed rest is a lot more difficult than I expected, lol.

thanks 😊

thank you!! ❤️

thank you 🥰

How long was the waitlist, or the time between your consultation and the scheduled surgery date?

That’s a good question - I started HRT in December 2023, and I couldn’t have any surgeries until 1 year later (Dec. 2024). I knew I wanted an orchi, so during my first year of HRT I got a letter from a therapist for surgery, and then called up the hospital and scheduled a consultation, which happened probably sometime in the summer or fall of 2024 (sorry, details are a little fuzzy here).

Then I had the orchi scheduled with them for December and I started laser hair removal on the genital region a couple months before the orchi as I started to think a vaginoplasty would be a good idea.

Electrolysis for hair removal started ASAP after the orchi, so that was early February.

So overall the wait was like 6ish months since if I hadn’t been so dismissive of my bottom dysphoria and taken vaginoplasty more seriously, I might have done hair removal my whole first year of HRT and then had the vaginoplasty ASAP in December 2024 rather than waiting for June 2025.

Either way, I consider this a pretty short timeline, though I really wish I could have had my orchi when I started HRT in 2023, that insurance requirement to wait a year is blatant transphobia.

Which PIV method did you get? I was looking at a specific method in the northeast and am trying to get an orchi ASAP with a request to preserve some tissue for a specific method, and am wondering if this is the same method. This seems like a VERY short time in the OR.

Honestly I have no idea - I tend to think about getting the best surgeon and then getting whatever method they are best at. Since this surgeon is best at PIV that’s what I went with. I wish I had more details about it, because I’ve never heard of a full-depth vaginoplasty being done in 2 - 3 hours, that’s just insane.

Did you discuss personal priorities with your doctor? I have in mind the juxtaposition of sensation vs function vs aesthetics.

In visits before the operation I did ask the PA and nurses about what to expect in terms of sensation, function, etc. I didn’t give a lot of input on aesthetics, but that’s partially because I’ve seen his work before and it matches what I would like.

Last one: how big was your grin when you woke up and realized everything was the way it should be?

Leading up to the surgery was so nervous I was making a mistake and scared that it would look awful and I would immediately feel regret. Once I was in my own room and could look at it more closely, despite being the first day I felt this immense relief - like I had just shed a mountain of burden. I was shocked to find that I was so extremely happy with the results, and that led to some happy sobbing.

I’ve had intrusive thoughts about cutting off my penis since I was a teenager, and my scrotum has always seemed extremely gross to me - I just coped by not taking those feelings seriously, and so in a real way I didn’t understand my own bottom dysphoria or how severe it was. Right now at least I just feel so much relief and happiness - and I can’t explain why, it just is that way despite not expecting it to be like this at all.

yes, I didn’t think my bottom dysphoria was that bad, I would have described it as moderate - but after the surgery and looking down, I felt such a huge sense of relief I broke down crying - I clearly had big feelings I was dismissing the severity of.

thank you! 💗