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AIBU?

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Original poster

To ask if your post birth vagina looks very different?

212 replies

yadayadayesokay · 07/02/2020 17:23

I gave birth 2 years ago and had forceps & an episiotomy. It was very traumatic and nobody examined me afterwards, I didn’t push for anyone to as I didn’t want anyone going near me.

Now I’m due to give birth again and thought I would have a look down there with a mirror, and wow it looks fucking disgusting. Sorry for TMI but while my labia looks the same, everything underneath looks rearranged, swirly and bumpy. It looks like an alien vagina.

Does anyone else look so different afterwards or is this very unusual?

OP posts:
HorseFlyOfExtraordinaryLength · 07/02/2020 21:19

Of course I have no objections to you using the word vagina. I'm advocating the correct use of the anatomical words at appropriate times. Hence you have a prolapse in your vagina, to your doctor. And possibly a prolapse in your fanny/foof/ladygarden/bits etc to a friend. And a large spot where there is an ingrowing hair on your vulva but not on your vagina as hair doesn't grow inside there.
And I still disagree that some may have been confused as to exactly which the OP was referring.

ritzbiscuits · 07/02/2020 21:24

God this has made me chuckle! I have forceps and an episiotomy too and never thought to look as it feels ok.

I'm kinda interested to see the Glasgow Smile now!!!

Strokethefurrywall · 07/02/2020 21:26

I made the mistake of looking down in the shower 30 minutes after I gave birth to DS1 and had an episiotomy.

I looked like what wile E. Coyote's face after the road runner jams a stick of lit dynamite up his nose.

My second thought was that it looked like it had been in a bar fight with Tom Hardy which is ironic given Tom Hardy gives me the fanny gallops...

Vehivle · 07/02/2020 21:28

Yes. Forceps, large baby and 3rd degree tear for my first labour. So now there is a raised off-centre scar running from v hole to b hole. But it doesnt hurt at all, functions very well continence wise and sex actually got way better after giving birth (AFTER 4 months of healing first of course!!). I had previously always felt too tight but I think giving birth to a near 10lber made me lose my mental fear of a penis going in lol! I've had another since! Same size- no forceps or tearing. So looks the same as after the first birth. But obviously never again as neat and tiny as pre babies. I did make the mistake of looking it at a few weeks into healing. Omg I cried buckets at the visible stitches and how swollen and wrong it looked! I was horrified and felt sick! But the stitches all dissolved and swelling went away to where it looks like an ordinary vagina - apart from the off centre scar. I'm quite happy with it considering it could have been far worse (double incontinence and all that - which can happen for missed 3rd degrees tears).

99problemsandthecatis1 · 07/02/2020 21:31

My midwife said it looked like I'd been kicked by a horse down there when checking my stitches after my first. One of the worst she'd seen, and she had been a midwife a long time.

OhWellThatsJustGreat · 07/02/2020 21:32

I haven't looked since the stitches were there, I felt really ill, it was not something I wan't too look at ever again.
DS ripped me front and back in 3 places as he came out, one right next to my labia.

Shelby30 · 07/02/2020 21:42

Mine looks same but I had c sections.

However, in late pregnancy it did not look like mine! It was all bulgy and swollen, I only looked as it didn't feel right either. I cld feel it was different even from wiping when going to the loo, so chances are it won't look like that after you've given birth but might still look different to how it used to.

Creweneck · 07/02/2020 21:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Ifyoumust79 · 07/02/2020 21:56

Anyone who says 'it's not your vagina it's your vulva'- why do you need to be so smug about it? You clearly know what the OP meant. It's so boring and annoying!!

Confuddledtown · 07/02/2020 22:00

No idea, I'm too afraid to look 🙈 (2 DCs, 2 and 5)

Herefortheweaning · 07/02/2020 22:01

Some of these descriptions are hilarious.

I haven't had a look because I've always been too frightened too. All I can tell you, is that when I fart, it some how comes from my butt and then turns into an almost "quief". I know that's never a good sign.

SallySun123 · 07/02/2020 22:06

Lols to the anatomical spat. I don’t care who’s correct because I’m going to be calling mine my punched lasagna from now on Grin

99problemsandthecatis1 · 07/02/2020 22:14

@Herefortheweaning that happened to me after my first. Nobody prepared me for that change! Pregnancy 2 seemed to fix it though thankfully (that one came out the sunroof thankfully).

Allcrimps · 07/02/2020 22:26

I had a weird little inner labia tear from where my son birthed himself in a superman position. I'll never forget asking the midwife if she could see his head and her saying...'nope, but I see a fist'. Reaching between your legs and feeling a tiny clenched human hand down there was surreal. I didn't get it stitched, but consequently have a tiny string of labia that just flaps around attsched to but almost independent to its labial mothership. It's like the hooha equivalent of the SNP. A fanjo string if you will. The rest looks, well, alright I think? I can't remember seeing it pre births but my boyfriend seems to love putting his face in it so I'm happy enough.

smotheroffive · 07/02/2020 22:36

Vulva looks the same. Entrance to the vag can be seen if looks closely a very fine silver line from first birth that was straight through from vag to rectum, including muscle.

At the time i was told to monitor it closely as it wasn't stitched, but I was too scared to look, so I didn't.

But despite all the trauma, it all looks the same to me, and certainly appealing to the male of the species still it seems.

Marahute · 07/02/2020 22:46

Mine looks sad. I mean I didn't think it was particularly beautiful beforehand, but it's definitely got a more "lived in" look now.
I have had two vaginal births. First an episiotomy and a 2nd degree tear. So I have two scars. The episiotomy scar cuts through my labia slightly, giving the lopsided look of someone suffering a stroke. The other tear is less noticeable.
It took a LONG time for me to look after DC1, I was terrified as healing had been so painful.

I had a smear test recently and the nurse said "Oh it looks red and sore!" (it's not sore!) which, given that she must see MANY fannies, made me feel a bit shit about it TBH. Sad

BurtonHouse · 07/02/2020 23:00

I've never seen my vagina, as it's tucked up inside. Vulva on the other hand, after 2 kids, looked like a mishap on a butcher's slab.

lifesnotaspectatorsport · 07/02/2020 23:37

Wow, I'm glad I had C-sections after reading this thread! My vulva looks pretty much the same, inner labia still neatly behind outer as they always were, and I can't see beyond the opening of my vagina. However my butt is scarred from removal of terrifyingly huge pregnancy piles and my poor belly button is saggy AF. Have a slight bulge over my section scar but not an overhang as such.

By the way, I'm astounded how many pp haven't ever had a good look down there!! I certainly did as a teenager and whenever I've felt anything different so during pregnancy etc.

CheesyWeez · 08/02/2020 00:01

I like the cupcake one in the video
But I laughed at the the pp's kebab description

NC4Now · 08/02/2020 00:27

Vulva police are out... this makes me laugh. We all know what we’re talking about

Lhia29 · 08/02/2020 00:32

Mine definitely looks unrecognisable. I accepted it. I don't see it much so its fine 😂

Motherofchickens1 · 08/02/2020 00:34

2 very long difficult births both with episiotomy and stitches - in the words of Greg Davies "it looks like someones taken a fucking axe to it!"

SpokeTooSoon · 08/02/2020 00:41

I've never seen my vagina, as it's tucked up inside

🙄 another one

Shinycat · 08/02/2020 01:03

Also PMSL at the vulva police, with their silly, passive aggressive little snotty comments, thinking they are sooooooooo clever and funny, by 'correcting' people slyly and sarcastically, like they are first to do it.

What a bunch of pillocks! 😂 By page 8, about 10 different people had done it. You ain't original honey, and you are just looking dumb!

Shinycat · 08/02/2020 01:04

Also PMSL at the vulva police, with their silly, passive aggressive little snotty comments, thinking they are sooooooooo clever and funny, by 'correcting' people slyly and sarcastically, like they are first to do it.

What a bunch of pillocks! 😂 By page 8, about 10 different people had done it. You ain't original honey, and you are just looking dumb!