Vickie:

It’s my understanding that your daughter is 12 yrs old and not 12 mnths? If that is so, I  can understand the need for surgery to allow for menstruation to flow but for the surgery that even you deem cosmetic. I have one thing to say about that one---- it doesn’t matter that the doctor (I’m assuming) thinks it looks somehow weird or how you or anyone else thinks about it.

The only thing that matters is how your daughter feels about it and truly feels about it. Meaning not how you or the doctors have told her how to feel. Many a Endo have/had to try and shame me about my genital area. Some people are traumatized by their body, I respect them and I do feel that I have empathy for their feelings too. Then there are other people like me and no matter what I looked like, I was still the cat’s meow.  As an adult I can understand what was done to me was for other people in my social structures comfort. Remember, kid’s like themselves until told otherwise.

Nobody ever asked how I felt about my own body, they just assumed I felt the same way they did and I pay for that everyday. The doctors told my parents if I didn’t have the surgery this..this and this was going to happen which was an assumption . Those doctors didn’t even know me and how I felt.

This is supposed to be for the patient and not for everyone else concerned...right? They say the surgery has improved and I hope for your daughters sake that it has. I I fully understand the need for the surgery for menstrual flow but the surgery for cosmetic reasons ? Hey, some people say they have sensitivity there but many others say they don’t. It’s not your body that might lose the sensitivity or the surgeons...really... shouldn’t your daughter know the risk involved? The consequence of the surgery is hers to shoulder  ALONE.

 Please make sure that she knows the risks involved and actually wants the surgery. As for later on in life, there are people out there that will like her body for the way it is and not for the doctors version of how it "should" be. Of course, the surgery at any time is her choice and thus allowing her self determination, power, and ownership over her own body.   

Email me if you would like, this wil be my only post for this thread.

Aimee