Waiting rooms are fun

If you hadn’t figured it out, that was sarcasm. Waiting, it’s what I do a lot of lately. Waiting for appointments, waiting for my car to be serviced, waiting for the workday to be over, waiting to tell my kids that Dad is trans, waiting for the day my wife might say she’s done with it all.

I have learned much about patience since having three kids. I have tried hard to teach them about patience too. But waiting patiently is hard. Waiting for a really long time breeds all kinda if negative emotions. Anger, fear, jealousy. I get angry seeing some people cut ahead while I wait. Or maybe they have access to resources I don’t and I get jealous. Then there is the fear that all that waiting is for naught.

Life is like this for many people. Being transsexual magnifies it, sometimes by a hundred fold.

Well I was sitting in a huge waiting room with about 7 or so other people and about 60 empty chairs. Managed care at its finest. After what I thought was a relatively long wait of 35 minutes the nurse called me in. However, I am used to my shortened birth name having to be used (they won’t change it until I get an official name change). “Rachel?, Rachel?!” Hmm why is everyone staring at me? I finally get it and meet her at the door, now with an audience. I wasn’t wearing much makeup and I was feeling a bit self conscious.

It seems my endocrinologist with infinite respect and sweetness put my chosen name in his records. He ‘gets it’ and that makes a huge difference for me. Even after the long wait, I was smiling and a bit close to tears hearing everyone call me Rachel. Dr O is a gentle scholarly looking man with just that nice touch of grey in his hair. We would be about the same height if I wasn’t wearing heels. We discussed how I have been doing on my current prescriptions. He asked about my physical and emotional states. He wanted to know how things were going with my family particularly between my wife and I. Dr O is one of those people who you just can’t lie to of hide things from. He lets me know that I control what happens with my transition and how I proceed with it. So I had to come clean and tell him that I have not told my wife explicitly that I am on estrogen now. I did tell her I am on a transition path and hormones are part of that. I also told my doctor I had doubled my spiro dosage for a bit and had a few mood based side effects. He gave me this little smile that said he’s heard it all before and I’m not the only one to mess with my HRT treatment. He was very happy that I was being honest.

Then it came down to the brass tacks. I had a choice to make. Go full out and quadruple my E dosage or take it slower. I can hear the voices of a few people I know, “take the 4mg dosage!”. I chose slow. 2mg for a month, then a more complete hormone level test. I found that my hand was shaking. (a nod to Becky) I had taken the roller coaster up the first big hill, now was that little curve at the top. That pause before the plunge. I was scared, hopeful, nervous and very sad.

Sad?? Shouldn’t I have been ecstatic? Shouting and jumping for joy? This is where I differ from many of the trans people I know. I have my own path and my own story. I started this blog because of that. If mine was like the traditional transsexual story why bother doing this at all. You see, I was a man, a husband and father. I never felt like I was faking things. ‘HE’ was never a facade that helped me navigate the male world I never belonged to. ‘He’ is real as real as Rachel is now. I try very hard to point this out to my wife. Especially when she tells me that I am killing ‘him’ off or that ‘he’ is fading away. I feel that loss just as much as she does. I let her know that she is not alone in that respect. I sit holding my tiny purple pill. This is where the next part of my journey starts. The coaster car is hovering above the drop and it scares the shit out if me. The main reason I hate roller coasters is the complete lack of control. Once the drop starts you can stop it. It only gets faster and faster until you hit the bottom (My friend Rinn would admonish me with facts about gravity and acceleration about now). This is truly the beginning of the end for my former self. I was never a winner but I hate to lose what I have. That downward plunge could be the cause of a lot of losses. You just don’t know. All I know is what I have said to my wife, my doctors, and my friends. I could always stay where I am right now and wonder what my life would be like. Or, I can move forward and accept what has to be. But, I will not go backwards.

I took my pill, and cried.

Timelines

Everyone who transitions seems to love their timelines. I mean YouTube is filled with transition videos depicting the before, during, and after phases. Even I used to give monthly updates. Well now that Facebook is forcing me to accept timelines I thought I would revisit them here.

Five days ago I started taking estrogen. One tiny little pill a day under my tongue. No earth shattering epiphany, no sense of euphoria, not much of anything. I cried, that’s about all. Not happy tears either. Sad tears. Tears I was shedding for my old life as if it had passed away.

I don’t dwell on it at all. I am not looking for signs of the effects. They find me.

Four days ago and my second pill. Nothing again. Just me and the normal everyday things.

Three days ago I thought about telling my wife. I chickened out. But, I took another pill. That night she looked at me funny and I thought she figured it out. No. She asked what I did to the skin on my face. I looked in the mirror and noticed my pores shrinking again. That had stopped a while ago even after doubling my spiro.

Two days ago I got out of bed and nearly fainted. I came back to bed and my wife put her hand on my chest. She noticed that my chest was warm. I noticed it was really sore and my breasts were a little swollen. I showered and put on a camisole with a hidden bra in it to hold me in place. Then I dressed for Easter service at our church. When we got home I made brunch and felt a bit more myself. My friend Sarah had recommended that I snack a bit to keep my blood sugar up. That seemed to help.

Easter dinner was hard because I was still pissed off at my dad for greeting my younger son by saying “Hey Chubby! How’s it going?” My son ran away and cried for a half hour. What made me more furious was that my dad has no idea he was being so insensitive. I’ve been pretty good about keeping my emotions in check. I always have and old habits die hard. So I bit my tongue and credited dementia for my dad’s behavior. After dinner I took a rest before starting the dishes and sat down with the kids to watch a little tv. A commercial came on that featured a cute little dog who looked very sad. I suddenly felt really bad for the poor dog and I started crying. Not full on sobbing, just some tears. I wiped my eyes and left to clean the dishes. That night my wife and I slept in each other’s arms.

Yesterday, I took my next pill at work. I started feeling a bit faint again and ate some almonds. I have come to the conclusion that my metabolism is running amok right now so I have to watch myself. Later I went to lunch with a friend from work. We had several conversations in the recent past about my starting HRT. She had thought is was best to wait and I had agreed. I decided she should know I lied to her. She was more than a bit disappointed in me but she was glad I was coming clean about taking the estrogen. What followed was a long conversation about my motives. Basically I boiled it down to three reasons:
1. I wanted to jump start my physical transition again. The effects of the testosterone blockers alone seemed to have reached a plateau. The dysphoria and body image issues were coming back. I saw this as a way to fix that.
2. I wasn’t as stable with the high spiro dosage. My mood swings were a lot more severe. I didn’t feel ‘right’. My endocrinologist had prescribed to low estrogen dose along with dropping my spiro dose. He thought it would get my hormone levels more in balance. I decided I had to see if he was right. My friend also pointed out that I seemed like a different person on the higher spiro dosage. Happiness and optimism had been replaced by a sense of defeatism and despair.
3. Pure reckless jealousy. I wanted what nearly every trans person I know has, estrogen. After watching a billion videos of “my first three months of HRT” and “a year on hormones” etc I wanted to see what I was denying myself. This is the most selfish decision and most cowardly. I wanted so bad to experience the effects of full HRT that I pushed thoughts of my wife and family to the side and did it anyways. Plus I never discussed it with my wife and had reassured her numerous times that I wasn’t taking estrogen.

I went into this thinking that a low dose wouldn’t effect me that much. I thought it would be months and months before I even noticed anything. I do want to repeat that I was not trying to look for the effects. I wanted to be able to separate facts from wishful thinking. Well the fact is I am at least as sensitive to estrogen as I am to spiro if not more so. I have also noticed a more subtle change back to a state of balance. I’m starting to feel ‘right’ again. I smiled and laughed today. I even started using my girl voice a bit more. Life just seems better.

I realize now just how powerful HRT can be. I also know that many trans people don’t see effects for quite a while,so some people will read this and say it’s all bullshit. I will point out that when I started transition my testosterone was on the lowest side of the scale for a normal male my age. Also my estrogen level was on the high side as well. All that combined with nearly eight months on 200mg of spiro did give me a head start. I already had significant changes to my hair and skin. I started developing breasts nearly three months ago. For me estrogen was the missing piece. My friend Sarah remarked once about how much I was getting out of just taking spiro. She said “It will be scary just thinking about how estrogen will effect you”. And yes, it is a bit scary and it seems awfully fast. Only time will tell if things slow down. But right here and now I feel peace again.

A little more about little breasts

Most transexuals can’t wait until they get breasts. Not this one. Don’t get me wrong. Now that the titty fairy showed up at my house I couldn’t be more pleased. However, not only wasn’t I expecting them this soon, I wasn’t expecting them at all.

I started T-blockers for a few reasons. One: to see how I would react emotionally and hormonally to a drop in testosterone to genetic female levels. Two: I wasn’t ready for full HRT and the changes (like breasts). And three: supposedly the effects were not permanent if I decided this was not what I truly wanted or could handle.

What really was going on. One: my endocrinologist explained that my starting testosterone levels were at the very low end for a male my age. And, given my age and other factors my body might not react very strongly anyways without adding estrogen. So the best I could hope for would be a more peaceful hormonal balance which should help with the dysphoria and slower hair growth. I thought “wow that would be nice, sign me up”. Two: I was happy wearing breast forms and not having to worry about going to the pool or the beach with my kids. I really didn’t want to have to explain to them or my wife why Dad had to wear a bikini top in the pool. Also, in regards to my wife, she is trying to wrap her head around me being trans and me getting breasts might damage that process. Three: I wanted a way to back out if there were problems with one and two.

Well that not what happened. Dropping my testosterone to next to near nothing did alot more that making me feel better and having shave less often. All those wonderfully things HRT is supposed to do happened. My pores are shrinking, my skin is smoothing and becoming softer, moisturizer is not an option, my eyesight has changed slightly, my hair growth has not only slowed but it’s growing in a pattern more consistent with genetic females, my butt and thighs are getting bigger, and now I’m getting boobs.

Yeah, who needs estrogen when your own body decides its going to help you out all by itself. A friend explained it this way. Because I am happier being a woman my brain releases endorphins. Since my body has more estrogen due to Spiro I feel the effects of that and it makes me even happier. Therefore more estrogen means I’m happier and have more endorphins which make me even happier so my body says making even more estrogen will keep those darn endorphins flowing.

Now to my current situation. My chest hurts. Not horribly, just in a generally achy way. I do have moments where I dread wearing a seatbelt or avoid anything that might bump my chest. Today I forgot something in the bedroom and had to run up and get it. No big deal. Running down stairs was another story. Let’s just say it brought new meaning to the word discomfort. Ouch. Yours truly is going to be buying her first sports bra right quick.

But something quite unexpected happened last night. My wife and I were cuddled up in bed. She just happened to rub her hand across my chest then abruptly stopped. Next thing I know I’m getting a none too delicate breast exam and being asked about why my chest feels different. I said that I didn’t really know why but I was a little sore there. The first thing that came into my head was “this is it, she’s not going to believe your not on hormones and she’s going to think you are lying again”. I braced myself
for the worst. Then she very gently caressed my tiny boobs, gave me a hug and we snuggled up and went to sleep.