It’s another womanhood achievement unlocked — first time in the stirrups. 😉

Granted in Thailand I had to assume the positionevery morning during the daily post-op visits by the nurses, as well as during the twice weekly check-ups at the clinic. But today was the first time stirrups were officially involved.

I was actually in to see my hormone doctor, since now that I’m 1) sans testes and 2) done with the initial round of breast growth, it’s time to adjust my estrogen prescription to take me down a “maintenance” dose, which I’ll need to take for the rest of my life. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t have any hormones in my body at all, and long-term that can cause some health problems.)

But since my hormone doctor has decades of experience treating trans women, it turns out that he’s also done post-op care for them — including with other patients of Dr. Suporn, who uses a technique that’s very different than the one used in the States. (In fact, Dr. Suporn generally doesn’t want you to have other doctors examine your new vulva/vagina unless it’s an emergency, since they won’t understand what he’s done, and they might cause damage if they try to “fix” something that’s actually not a problem. It’s happened.)

However, since my doctor is familiar with Dr. Suporn’s work, I took him up on his offer to check things out if I wanted. I figured it would be useful to get his opinion on how I’m healing. So up went to the feet, and out came the speculum.

The good news is it’s going well overall. There’s a small area of the 400-500 stitches inside me that has granulated tissue, which can be painful, but nothing that he’s concerned about. He also confirmed that I’ve got urethral opening irritation, apparently it’s pretty red. But while it’s ouchy and annoying, it’s not serious. Hopefully some of the things I’ve been doing in the past week will help calm it down.