So, unfortunately, my level of happiness with the aesthetic results of my surgery have dropped a bit over the last few days...
Immediately after surgery, when there was still a lot of swelling in the outer labia and the inner labia was therefore pulled very tight, I felt like things were a bit more correct, and I felt more optimistic about how things were going to heal because I figured "once swelling goes down, the insides will become more prominent and the outside will become less prominent."
As swelling has gone down and things have settled down a bit, though, it hasn't quite gone that way. And I've become less satisfied with how everything looks.
The outer labia has slowly deflated. When I first woke up from surgery it was a bit puffy and tight, I felt only a little bit of loose material there. Where now as the swelling has gone down it's become loose to the point that it's almost droopy. Basically, there's a lot of loose material on the outside now, and I feel like it's not a good kind of loose, it's like a "there's too much skin here" kind of loose.
The inner labia still hasn't gained ANY definition whatsoever. Everything is still pulled completely tightly back into the vagina, to the point where I still basically don't see any inner labia at all, and there's not even any loose skin in the area where it's supposed to be to suggest that eventually there will be one once swelling goes down.
Dr. Chett was honest with me before surgery that making a defined inner labia was going to be difficult with me because my anatomy was so small, but I'm still bummed that I don't have that "defined stretchy inner labia coming down from the clitoral hood" look that one associates with a cis vagina. Like, the part of Chett's demonstration cases that I liked the most was how he created such a natural-looking inner labia, and his "2-year post-operative SRS" video on his Youtube channel shows EXACTLY the kind of inner labial structure I was hoping for, and was one of the big reasons why I chose him. And, well, I feel like I don't have that. I will be really bummed if I don't ever get that same kind of inner labial structure. And again, the appearance on the outside is looking a bit droopy and loose right now while the inside is practically non-existent.
All of the internal structures are perfect. Clitoris is exactly the right size and the right definition and has perfect sensation and perfect placement. And the structures that are inside of the inner labia area, the urethra, the vagina, all perfect. Totally happy with that. But I'm not completely happy with how the outside is starting to look as it's healing. I might be asking for a cosmetic revision down the line, asking for a reduction of the outer labia and enhancement of the inner labia, if things don't improve.
(And yeah, I know, it takes time, wait, let things heal, but, well... I don't think that this is an issue of swelling. I don't see how swelling going down could possibly fix both of these issues at once. And it's a bit distressing because I actually said before surgery "I care about how it looks on the outside more than depth. Specifically I care about the definition of the inner labia. So if you need to sacrifice a bit of depth to give me a better-looking result, I'd actually prefer that." So basically I feel kinda bummed that the only specific request I made, to make sure the inner labia looked defined and good, is the one and only thing about the surgery that I'm now unhappy with.)
I guess what happened here is that up until this point I was giving the nurses the benefit of the doubt, their reassurances of "everything looks normal, it will heal" reassured me. Where today I read a topic (
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,213763.0/topicseen.html ) about someone unhappy with their SRS results with Chett for the EXACT same reasons that are making me currently concerned about mine, so now I'm sorta panicking about those things never correcting themselves or getting worse, so I'm a bit more concerned now.
How it feels is the most important part of SRS to my mental health, in case it's not obvious, and the "feel" of everything is a HUGE success, Chett did such an amazing job with the nerves and the function and the internal structure, so this isn't a huge deal, it's just the superficial cosmetic things on the outside. But it is still something that I'm going to be a bit disappointed about if it doesn't improve (or gets worse) as swelling continues to go down.
So basically, happiness with how everything feels/functions is a 10/10. Happiness with how it looks was about a 7/10 immediately after surgery, but now down to about a 5/10.
I've kinda already expressed a little bit of concern to the nurses, (I haven't vocalized it as if it's an "I'm unhappy with this," more just "I'm a bit concerned about how this is healing, is it going to improve?") And they've just always responded with "no, this is normal. Good result. It looks beautiful," so I let it pass, assumed it was just a matter of healing and would improve, but maybe I'm kinda getting to the point where I should actually say I'm a bit unhappy with it? Point out the differences between how I look and how the results I was hoping for look, and ask for more clarification? I don't know...
