Throwaway because I don't like mentioning too many personal details on my main account

My wife and I are both trans women and both got our vaginoplasties done at NYU Langone by Dr. Bluebond-Langner and Dr. Zhao about a year ago.

Electrolysis

We both got electrolysis for over a year. Each of us got about 1 hour per week a piece. It wasn't too bad. We both had high pain tolerances, numbing cream, and a good electrologist. NYU cleared me at my pre-op about 18 months before the surgery. I still continued getting electrolysis anyway to be safe. They recommended my wife continue electrolysis which she did. We both had similar levels of clearance by the day of our surgery.

Week before surgery

We did the laxative treatment NYU wanted. I did fine but my wife was pretty much glued to the toilet for a couple days. They told her to take less when we called and asked. Since our surgeries were scheduled on the same day, we told them I wanted to go first and my wife wanted to go second. They said they could do that. We got a call a day before the surgery and were told it would be the other way around.

Day of surgery

Wife's surgery took less than 90 minutes. I don't know how long mine was. Wife later told me she was misgendered in the PACU by the transport aid. When she mentioned this to a nurse, they apologized profusely and multiple higher-ups in the department asked for more detail and promised they would improve their training.

The hospital stay

I set my hospital room's temperature to 67 but it never got below 75. I was constantly asking the nurse for more cold packs. When I tried to shower for the first time, the drain was clogged and I had to stop prematurely to not flood the bathroom. I had to stay an extra day at the hospital because of bleeding at Dr. Zhao's recommendation.

My wife doesn't respond to opiate painkillers, for some reason. She kept asking them for Aleve instead of opiates but they refused to deviate from the standard painkiller regiment. She described herself as being in 11/10 pain throughout the first couple days. It wasn't until my mom started kicking up a storm for her, Dr. Bluebond-Langner allowed her to take Aleve. The antibiotic IV caused her to get intense diarrhea. Whenever they would bring in a new course, she would get panic attacks. She still has some trauma about IVs because of this.

Staying in New York for a month

I had some issues with blood clots and hematomas at the incision site. I was told to massage the area manually express any clots that were willing to come out. At this point, my left labia started separating near the vaginal canal. When I asked about this a post-op, they said there was nothing to worry about and it would heal in the right place. When I saw the pelvic floor physical therapist, all she did was ask me a questionnaire I could've filled out online then told me her next available appointment was in 2 months. Since I don't live in New York, I obviously didn't go back.

My wife didn't have many issues with recovery at this point. The pelvic floor PT she saw was more helpful and provided advice she brought back to me.

Recovery at home

After spending nearly 10 hours at LGA due to flight delays, we were finally home.

My labia that separated a bit did not heal in the right place so now my labia are asymmetric. It still looks cis enough to please me though.

By this point, my wife lost her clitoral hood. We guess the stitches holding it together popped off prematurely. She also was having painful dilation with some smell. By this point, my wife was concerned she might have some hair in her vaginal canal but we weren't sure.

3 Month Follow-up

We mentioned our concerns, my labia and her clitorial hood. They reassured me my labia should look normal when the swelling goes down. For my wife, they scheduled a revision surgery at the 9 month mark to restore her clitoral hood. During the exam, they said they couldn't see any hair in her vaginal canal and neither of us had granulation tissue.

A couple weeks later, my wife was having an issue that was consistent with what we have read about granulation tissue on here. We called and asked. They said it couldn't be granulation tissue since they didn't see it at the post-op. After pushing back some, they prescribed some ointments to put on the dilator. These ointments cleared up whatever it was.

6 Month Follow-up and disillusionment with NYU

By this point, my swelling had gone down enough I was confident the asymmetric labia was not from swelling, but from separation. Likewise, my wife was confident there was hair in her vaginal canal.

At my follow-up, Dr. Bluebond-Langner said it didn't look like it had separated but instead looked like excess skin she could remove in a revision. I wasn't particularly interested. I was getting pretty sick and tired of travel at this point. She said if I ever changed my mind to let them know and we could get it addressed. After the follow up, I checked my early recovery photos and could see the labia was attached at one point and got more separated each week for the first month or two.

For my wife, the nurses and Dr. Bluebond-Langner insisted they didn't see any hair in her vaginal canal. She thought they were wrong. To reassure my wife there was no hair in there, we bought some speculums and a high-powered flashlight. I looked inside and I immediately saw hair. It was so obvious I don't know how NYU could've possibly missed it. We asked our electrologist if she'd be willing to give it a shot removing them and she was. I just bought her some speciality supplies like clear speculums, extra long tweezers, high-powered flashlights. With me helping her by shining the light wherever she needed it and helping her find hairs, our electrologist was able to remove most of the hairs.

Revision Surgery

At the pre-op for the revision surgery, we mentioned we found hairs by looking at it ourselves and we've been having our electrologist address it. The nurses didn't say much beyond "okay" and "we don't recommend our patients perform their own exams." During the revision surgery, Dr. Bluebond-Langner and Dr. Zhao performed an exam and claimed they didn't see any hairs and even if there were hairs, there would be nothing they could do. She had just gotten electrolysis a couple days before so perhaps there was nothing there this time.

My wife got her clitoral hood restored and she is much happier with her results now.

1 Year Follow-Up

We had to move away from our hometown for career reasons and due to the increasing hostility towards trans people by the Republican-led state. Unfortunately, my wife still has a couple hairs left in her vaginal canal. (Though, much less than just 6 months ago.)

Since moving is expensive, I asked NYU if our 1-year follow up could be virtual. They said no so I said we couldn't make it. One of the nurses called me and asked for more explanation. As a summary of our conversation,

• I asked what percentage of patients have issues at the 1-year mark. She refused to say anything more than "some".
• I asked how can we trust NYU to notice issues we might have that we're unaware of if you couldn't even see the hairs in my wife's vaginal canal at the 3, 6, or 9 month mark. She said they might notice an issue this time.
• I asked how can we trust NYU to take issues we bring up seriously when you shrugged off the vaginal hairs and said I was wrong about my labia separating. She didn't have a response.
• I asked if we did go, would NYU have a plan to address the vaginal hairs my wife still has since our old electrologist lives halfway across the country. She said they could see what they could do at the follow-up. I said that I wanted a more detailed plan. She said she'd ask Dr. Bluebond-Langner and get back to me.
• I asked why would it be a better use of our time to fly to NYC for a "maybe we could do something" when we could instead fly back to our hometown to definitely be able to get the issue addressed. She didn't have a response besides continuity of care.
• I asked why has this phone call been longer than any post-op I had at NYU and why does it feel like we're only be listened to now that we are talking about canceling an appointment. She apologized that we felt this way.

A couple days later, the nurse called back and told me Dr. Bluebond-Langner recommended my wife continue getting electrolysis, but there probably wasn't anything they could do at the post-op, but perhaps there was another issue they could find. I thanked her for her time and told her we wouldn't be going to the 1 year post-op as flying back to our hometown to get electrolysis and finding a trans-friendly gyno where we now live seems like a better use of our finances and time. She said she'd let Dr. Bluebond-Langner and Dr. Zhao know and if we changed our minds, we could always have another appointment.

Summary (tl;dr)

Both of our hospital stays were not great. (My recovery room not being great. She was misgendered and they adhered too strictly to prescription painkillers rather than letting her take an OTC painkiller.)

We both had complications with our results. One of my labia separated and now hangs a higher than intended. My wife had hair in her vaginal canal and lost her clitoral hood. NYU insisted we were wrong about all of this except the clitoral hood which they did a revision to fix. My wife had to get electrolysis in her vaginal canal to remove the hair NYU claimed she didn't have.

We are both happy with our results. Aesthetically, our vulvas look cis (even mine despite the labia separation). Functionally, everything works. And it's because we're happy with our results, we are so disappointed by NYU's lackluster post-op care.

Feel free to AMAA, I guess.