I have always been ambivalent about the idea of breasts. I don't find them aesthetically pleasing so much as appropriate. I never let myself believe that I wanted or even needed to have them as part of my body. When I was young I had a bra and I would stuff it with panties. With a top on, I just looked so right. So I guess boobs became one of my biggest points of self repression. Total denial. I even began to hate them on other women, to be disgusted by them. I suppose that was the envy. When I decided to transition I realized in the back of my mind that it could mean that it could all finally happen. But I tried my best to not think about it, I kept my expectations low.
In the first blush of self acceptance I bought a bra and it was marvelous to wear one again. However, it also didn't feel quite right. Same with a bunch of tops I had purchased. It was like I didn't feel feminine enough to wear them yet. This was all pre hrt. So I decided not to wear the bra again until I needed to.
That day finally came in the middle of last week. I'm a bit over a month and a half on hrt, two plus weeks on a dose double what I started on. At the end of the first month, around week three, they started getting sore, tingly and itchy. My nipples were all of a sudden erect all the time. Since then it has been daily cycles of thise three symptoms and my nipples have increased in diameter by an eighth of an inch a week. It happened around last Wednesday, I had had to do a lot of bending over at work, by the end of the day my chest was in screaming pain. So I asked my friend and roommate if that could be helped by wearing a bra. She said "yup" and also mentioned that she had noticed the growth. So that was it, people could tell and I needed a bra. The next nigh I went online to buy a couple more sports bras and I realized I didn't know if I had a cup size yet. So I found some sites that could calculate that and found out I have reached an A.
The week before, when they first became visible to me, it was in the bathroom mirror, I saw them clear as day. I cried. It was a little intense. I felt relief, joy and saddness all at once. The rest of that day, I struggled to put my feelings in order. I went and sat in the dark for a while, out in my back yard. I was fidgety so I decided to go on a walk. My first late night walk since transitioning. It was an old habbit. As I walked I realized I was upset because I knew that I would never have to be him again. That I had kind of been waiting for the first major step I had taken toward permanent change to take effect. The next day I painted my nails. Now I feel ready to start electrolysis and get my ears pierced. All the tops that hadn't felt right finally fit and I had a bit of a fashion show for myself.
Just as a test I wore tighter clothes to work a couple nights ago and a peson who had never met me before said "hello ladies" as I aproached with the other woman I was there to work with. That was a first. Yesterday I went on a bike ride and I just wore a tank over my bra and a pair of running shorts. I had cars driven by men going out of their ways to let me cross the road. I had men who were first in line in the grocery let me go ahead. There was even a creep who drove slowly behind me as I rode my bike up the street.
Even when someone misgenders me now, on purpose or by accident. Even on my most dysphoric lows, I can now look down and see my breasts and know that I am a woman and that there is no person on this planet that can take that from me. I actually feel comfortable without a shirt on, by myself of course, for the first time in my life. Every day is better now. Even if they never grow again they are big enough. I finally have my girls!
I didn't think it would mean this much to me to have breasts, but it does. I feel more and more feminine every day, more and more me too because even some of my masculine traits feel ok now. It helps too that the rest of my body is starting to change too. My but, hips and thighs have gotten fatter. My face has changed too as has my neck. My friend pointed it out before I could.
Anyway, I just needed to get that out there (bet you thought I would go with "off my chest"?)
thanks to anyone who reads it.
