Broken vagina? What if some weird anomaly meant that despite extensive damage, you now found it easier to orgasm than ever? What if it was actually impossible NOT to orgasm during sex?
This article originally appeared on Kidspot.
Georgie* was in the shower when she first noticed something was wrong. Dipping her hand between legs she felt a bulge where there shouldn’t be one. It was accompanied by a strong feeling of pressure at the opening of her vagina. Internally it felt like this bulge was dragging all her internal organs downwards. “Oh god,” she thought. “My cervix is falling out.”
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Hurrying from the bathroom she immediately started googling (a terrible idea) and eventually took herself to the doctor at 6 weeks postpartum. There she discovered that what she thought was her cervix was actually a Stage 1 Prolapse, on the front wall of her vagina, caused by damage done to the pelvic floor during birth.
“Prolapse. That word completely freaked me out. I just broke down, completely inconsolable. I’m busted, I thought.”
The birth that broke my vagina
Let’s not beat around the bush. “The birth of my first child brutalised my vagina,” Georgie says.
After a botched forceps delivery Georgie suffered a second degree perineal tear, which was stitched. What wasn’t stitched was a much, much bigger tear in her pelvic floor muscle – the levator ani – on her right side. This one was actually more of a severing - the muscle ripped completely, leaving her pelvic floor hanging purely by the ligament. And then there was the up-tear. “It ripped the mouth of my vagina up towards the clitoris, taking with it a piece of my labia. Yes, a PIECE OF MY LABIA. And you know what? I have absolutely no idea where it went.”
After that, apart from the usual recovery pains, the deep pelvic floor tear made the whole right side of Georgie’s vagina sag. “It literally felt like my sex organs had suffered a stroke,” she describes. “And then the pain came.”
“The first time my partner and I had sex was okay at first, but the pain I suffered after was excruciating.” The sex was so painful in fact that the couple didn’t try again until 8 months later. After the scar was removed.
Giving my vagina the attention she deserved
Sex had always been an important, and satisfying, part of Georgie and her partner’s life. It was something they both missed and, more importantly, Georgie missed the loving sexual relationship she once had with herself. “I worked really hard at it [sex] and always believed having an orgasm to be my responsibility too. I did a lot of Pilates prior to, and throughout, my pregnancy, and was actually in the middle of a pelvic floor physiotherapy session when the scar was discovered.”
With her therapist’s fingers measuring the strength of her vaginal clenches, Georgie was in a lot of pain. Eventually it got too much and a gynaecologist was called into the room.
“My best friend had come with me to the session. She held my baby while the gyno declared my pain was coming from granulation tissue that had formed after my tear. Essentially I had healed “too well”- my body just didn’t know when to stop creating scar tissue. Warning that the procedure she was about to conduct couldn’t be guaranteed to work, she gave me a general and then quarterised (cut) the excessive tissue out.”
Once removed, the scar tissue was the size of a golf ball, but Georgie’s vagina healed in six weeks.
The magic vag: Scars, prolapse and all
The first time Georgie had sex post, she was pleasantly surprised. Rather than the excruciating pain she’d become accustomed to, it suddenly felt great. The next time was also great, and the next, and the next.
For some reason, climaxing had become incredibly easy. “It wasn’t like I was suddenly wracked with orgasms, it just gradually dawned on me … I’d got a winning ticket in the sex stakes! For us, for the way our bodies work and the way we make love, we’re a winning combination.”
While there is no scientific reason why sex is now so good, Georgie has her theories. “I feel like the slight prolapse (yes, it’s still there) puts the G-spot right where it’s supposed to be for my partner’s shape. Suddenly all the good bits are in contact and I don’t have to try at all.”
She also feels that the “loosening” effect of birth has done something good. “I’ve always had a lot of strength down there, but maybe I had too much tension. Everything is just a lot more relaxed now – more conducive to orgasm in general.”
The unlikely result of such a traumatic nine months has given Georgie an interesting perspective of her relationship with sex, her body, and her not-so-broken vagina.
“I was so sad about my vagina, I missed the way it used to be. But despite these feelings, and despite how it may look, my vagina is working better than it ever has. It’s amazing! And you know what? It birthed my second baby like a champ and this time, the battle scars have only served to make it stronger.”
*Not her real name