Analysing my body's decades-long stumbling through puberty

In previous writings I have mentioned this 'second puberty' that I felt that I was experiencing, but after looking it more closely, it's more of an excessively drawn out puberty. When using the commonly used Tanner scale [1][2] and putting it alongside the symptoms which I have noticed since the age of 11, I can now clearly see the struggle my body went through over the decades.

Age 11 was when I noticed early breast development, along with my hips beginning to widen. Over time both this female and male secondary development slowed to where I was left in essentially in a Tanner III stage, with neither full breast development nor any of the typical male characteristics, aside from the development of penis. As the biopsy of the removed testicles in 2011 showed, they had never entered the spermagenesis stage of development.

At this point in time, the female side of my body appeared to be stuck in a Tanner II or III stage when it came to the breasts, but with no clear development of the vagina into the multi-layer structure yet [3], as judged by the near-dozen MRI scans that were made of that region between 2007 and 2014. These showed the vaginal structure in the lateral views, running from the perineum to the top of the bladder, but without the characteristic 'H'-shaped structure when looked at it in the top-down views.

The clear presence of a vagina indicates that the testicles while present did not produce sufficient Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) to have terminated development of the müllerian (paramesonephric) ducts that would go on to develop the upper part of the the vagina, the uterus and surrounding structures. Though the top one-third of the vagina appears to be present in those MRI scans, a uterus cannot be distinguished on them, nor ovaries.

Clearly, the interesting thing is that after puberty ground to a halt in my early teenage years, it seems to have resumed again in 2015, 3-4 years after the late 2011 orchiectomy that saw those undeveloped testicles removed. This may hold clues as to why the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (with estradiol) seemed to have very little effect on my body, despite being on it from 2007 to 2014. Some triggers appear to have been missing.

This led to the sudden estradiol overdose effect when the estradiol sensitivity of my body apparently became significant, with female development akin to Tanner IV and V taking place over the course of the past four years. Most noticeable being the significant growth of the breasts, going from a small A cup to a regular B (so far), in the complete absence of HRT, with seemingly my body winding its way through the Tanner V stage towards full maturation as an adult female. It's also noticeable in my hips and overall body and skin tone.

The abdominal swelling and suspected ascites that started around 2015 appears to be linked with this as well. As part of female puberty involves the enlarging and development of the vagina, uterus and ovaries, this could provide hints as to why I am having these pains and sensations of discomfort in my abdomen and perineum. Considering my unusual physiology, any such changes to organs and randomly distributed tissues in my abdomen could easily lead to ascites as abdominal tissues respond to these changes in a negative way.


What would be interesting at this point is to have a new abdominal MRI scan made, as the first scan since before the resumption of puberty. Could one now see an adult vaginal structure, including the multi-layer mucosa, surrounded by a bright, white line? Is the uterus truly missing, or did some vestigial tissues there respond and grow? What would have happened to the ovarian tissue that's likely also present in my abdomen, as evidenced by my natural estradiol cycle (recorded in early 2018 by a gynaecologist)?

At this point I'm on a low-sodium diet in an attempt to keep the ascites-like symptoms under control, which seems to have a positive effect. Heading back into the fray of the medical system is not something which I am looking forward to, however. Though my body is very clear at this point about finishing up the development of these secondary female characteristics, the medical system and the people in it doesn't appear to have evolved to the point where a hermaphroditic intersex person doesn't simply get laughed away as 'yet another transsexual'.

That's a trauma which I'm absolutely not looking forward to facing again, and is essentially the reason why despite me feeling practically pregnant with these ascites symptoms I haven't bothered to see a doctor about it again this year.

As for my body, I do hope that it will follow a natural course here. Simply finish up this whole puberty thing after what feels like a lifetime and leave me with nothing more serious than the issue of the still closed-off vagina and the monthly discomfort and agony. Though I am on a contraception pill now to suppress most of those symptoms, I'm well aware of this not being a fix but instead merely treating the symptoms.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanner_scale
[2] https://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/stages-of-puberty
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty#Vagina,_uterus,_ovaries
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-M%C3%BCllerian_hormone