Hi Sarah,

Congratulations on your new baby girl! My daughter is almost 5 years old now and she is doing wonderfully. She has not had any surgery and is doing great. No lack of self esteem problems here. Let’s hope that continues. She knows she is a girl and loves both girl and boy activities and friends. We had a urologist try to tell us that she will get many urinary tract infections and therefore needs the surgery. (She has never had one.) This was an incredibly hard decision. We did tons of research and decided the best option was to wait until she can decide what is best for her body. She is virilized and has only outer labia as the inner ones are fused. She has no problem with the size of her clitoris. She know that she will need surgery someday (to acces her vagina for menstruation.) She is all right with this knowledge. She asked if it would hurt and I told her yes but she will be able to handle it and that we would be with her. She knkows that she has a large clitoris but really never wants to discuss it at all. She is okie dokie from her point of view. She is strong willed, funny, self assured, strong, well coordinated and well balanced. She is very smart. I barely think of her virilization anymore where when she was born and we were debating whether or not to have surgery we were plagued with thinking about the fact. Many research articles state there can be problems with early surgery due to stenosis (scar tissue that doesn’t stretch and need for more surgery). I agree that if you do have the surgery for your daughter get the most qualified surgeon you can. I just wanted to write so you could hear from the other point of view as many had written who had surgery for their daughters. There are many out there who have not done surgery and are happy with the fact. I guess it came down to this for us...surgery is irreversible. This is her body not ours and is really her decision. Good luck with this. Take care of that beautiful girl! Give her a big hug! Julia