One of the things Dr. Suporn does is to map analogous tissue between the male/female genitals. So he reuses erectile tissue from the penis when creating the outer labia, so that the labia can become engorged with blood when aroused, just as the factory-installed version does.

Unfortunately, during recovery I’m getting temporary swelling in the clit and labia, which creates an uncomfortable feeling of pressure and stiffness. It can be so intense that it’s really discomfortable if I’m driving (seems to put more pressure on things down there, probably because my car has bucket seats).

At first I noticed it during the night, and thought it might be a holdover neuro/biological thing, since people assigned male at birth have involuntary erections during REM-state sleep. (Not sure if people assigned female at birth have a similar involuntary arousal of their vulvas.) But then it’s started happening at random times during the day.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to talk with other patients (there’s a secret Facebook group for us), and found out this is fairly normal during recovery, with your body testing what’s going on down there and how things work now, and it goes away over a number of months.

In the meantime, like a lot of other things, I’m just having to embrace the suck.