Betsy's CAH and bonding (October 2001)

Wow, what a story. It's good the doctors were careful to make sure you were female-identified, before they made you "look" more like a girl......it sounds like that was part of the counselling that you received as a child. But, to me, your story was eye-opening in that it pointed out the apparently unpredictable and still experimental nature of this surgery, for it's hard to believe that to fix a "plumbing" problem and a fused vagina, that your entire clitoris had to be removed. Though you are perhaps different from other CAH adults in that you possess amazingly little rancor, and didn't seem to suffer much psychological trauma as a result of this, the end physical results of your surgeries sound similar. I believe one of the other adults on this mb had her procedure done in the 1950's. In the 20-odd years between then and when yours was done in 1975, it sounds like not much progress was made in honing surgical techniques. Now it's been another 20-odd years.......for the sake of all the girls who may be facing this same thing, let's hope that things have truly improved for this current generation.