I saw a comment saying that there is an unfulfilled need for more information on consultations (and results, but I'm still a ways away, lol). I had my consult with Dr. Rachel Bluebond-Langner on September 8th, so it's not exactly fresh in my mind, but I figured I'd share anyways :)

Scheduling:

Going chronologically, my first call was really easy. I called, said I'd like to schedule a consultation for vaginoplasty, and they wrote me in. I got lucky and got a date only 5 months away! After covid really hit, I started having issues communicating though.

They told me they were switching to video conferences and that I should fill out some paperwork if I wanted to do it over video. I had questions but had to call again and again. I only got answers when I got to a human. If I hit an answering machine, my calls were not returned. My messages were only returned once iirc. I was told I could use MyChart, but I couldn't actually send any messages through there until after my consultation. They never told me if I was set up for the video or not. I finally get through to them (after a decent period of giving up on trying to contact them) and I'm told, they are *not* doing video consults anymore. No biggie, but a heads up would've been nice. Skip to a week or so before my consultation and they call me to make sure I'm ready and such. Now they *are* doing video consults again (when that changed, I have no clue) and they require a covid test for in person consultations (totally fair, but again I wasn't informed and had already bought my plane tickets at this point. My plan was to fly in the night before, but they needed 24 hrs for the covid test to process.) I rescheduled my flight and hotel stay and got everything situated. It was a lot more trouble than I would've liked, but everything is all set up.

Consultation:

Getting to the actual appointment, I showed up and waited for over an hour before I was seen. It doesn't severely stain my experience, but for something scheduled months (in some cases, over a year) in advance, it seemed odd. I'll chalk that up to something unexpected popping up though, as my second appointment (that I'll get to) went quickly and smoothly. The actual consultation went fine. I knew mostly what to expect, and they answered my questions. I will say that she was dismissive towards one or two questions though. Kinda gave a "why would you even ask that" vibe. I don't think it was the intention, but it unnerved me a little. (The question I specifically remember was "can anal sex make SRS difficult/impossible?" I asked because I had seen a post here about how a woman was only able to get minimal depth GCS (apparently) because of anal. She only learned this after waking up from the procedure.)

Overall, it honestly felt like a waste of time. Part of this is because I was hoping for some kind of tangible progress, but I didn't even get a tentative date until a week or so afterwards and I needed to get new letters anyways because they said that ideally, you want your mental health letters to be dated within a year of your actual surgery. I also didn't really learn anything I didn't already know from doing my research. If you can do it over video, I'd probably suggest that, with some hesitations. You do need a pre-op physical (though, that turned out to be all of three seconds looking and jotting down about how long I was flaccid). This (along with hearing that she only shows results in person) were my main motivations for heading there in person. Not to mention that I had already planned on making the trip. I'd taken time off work and booked my tickets etc.

*Big thing to take note of if you're planning on going with Bluebond-Langner:*

Make sure you *ask* to see results if you want to see them. I expected that showing pictures was standard practice and didn't even have it in my list of questions. I managed to forget to ask about them until I was on my way to the airport. I had to take a second trip up, isolate and take a covid test again. All to just see some pictures. I'm glad I won't be going in blind so to speak, but I spent way more money and time than was realistically necessary. That all said, this second appointment makes me think the issues I had the first time around were a bit of a fluke. They quickly found a slot for me, scheduled me, and saw me in a timely manner. Communication is also vastly improved.

It's also worth noting that I did have to pay for both appointments. It was ~$130 the first time, ~$30 the second. Both were run through insurance.

Post Consultation:

I got lucky once again with my surgery date. It's 11 months after my consultation. That means I only waited 16 months from first call to surgery! I got in on cancellations for both dates, so I don't know if this is something to expect or not, but they also mentioned that once I'm finished with my hair removal, I can ask to be moved further up. On the topic of hair removal, she does require it, but also does follicle scraping for safety. As for where it's required, you'll get a PDF, but it's a triangle starting right above the anus, following the creases of your legs and ending about halfway up the scrotum on each side.

I've got a pre-op appointment in May (this will be over video) going over what exactly to expect. What I know now though, is that I'll stay in the hospital for 5 days, walk after 2(!). Then I'll have to stay within an hour of the hospital for 2 weeks. I'll have several post-op appointments. Once a week for 4 weeks, then at 3, 6, and 12 months post-op.

The recovery schedule is roughly: Walking at 2 days, touching once you're comfortable, cleared for work at 6 weeks, sex at 3 months, major swelling gone at about a year.

The dilation schedule is 4x daily for the first 6 weeks, 3x daily for the next 6 weeks, 2x daily from month 3 to month 9, 1x daily from month 9 to 12. 1-3x per week post year 1.

I think that just about does it! Apologies for the info dump, but that should cover pretty much everything that came to my mind. Let me know if you've got any questions!