Mel,

Congrats on your baby girl.  My daughter (now age 9) was also born with SWCAH and ambiguous genitalia.  She was only the second child in Santa Maria born with this condition.  The first was a male and he is full grown now.  As the others have said you should research, reasearch, reasearch and then decide when you think it is best for your daughter to have the surgery.  In my daughters case her labia were fused together.  She could urinate but there would never be a chance for sexual intercourse and pap exams.  We chose to wait until she was 11 months old to do the surgery.  I felt that I needed to research a lot of things and then I wanted to meet with the physician several times and then I also wanted Ashely to be stable enough to undergo the surgery.  There is fasting that has to take place and the meds need to be controlled very well.  I was afraid that she would go into adrenal crisis.  her surgery was performed at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.  Her surgeon was Dr. hardy.  In researching him, I discovered that he is a pro at this type of surgery and he often corrects what unexperienced doctors have screwed up.  In speaking with several of his patients in the waiting room I found no one that wasn’t pleased with him.  I have never found a mal practice suit against him or anything.  He was very attentive to my family and cared a great deal about Ashely.  She had her surgery on a Monday afternoon and on Wednesday afternoon we were on our way home.  She recovered very well, very little bleeding, and she was not in much pain.  And for some reason, she no longer wanted a bottle she only wanted a cup.  So when we came home she started using a cup.  Bath time was a little difficult.  soap will sting the area.  But your doctor will give instruction on how to bathe her.  it was so long ago that I actually don’t remember how I bathed her.  Then when Ashley was 4 years old her clitoris started to grow.  Because it was causing her pain and growing at an extreme rate we decided to go with the clitorial reduction.  Now this surgery took place about 4 months after we started to notice the growth.  The doctor wanted to monitor it and Dr. Hardy wanted to see her several times.  The doctors determined that she would not grow into this clitoris and since it was causing her a great deal of pain we decided to go ahead with the surgery.  Again it was performed on a Monday and we were on our way home on Wednesday.  Both surgeries were performed by Dr. hardy and went smoothly.  the first was to seperate her labia and second was to reduce the clitoris.  I would be happy to discuss this further with you if wanted to.  My email address is amancio-lisa@excite.com.

Lisa V.