Feb 13th - twenty-seven

Ha... I take this. Still feels like I am 27 years away from passing...



Besides that: Just collapsed at work from exhaustion. Fun - and 13 more days to go.

Feb 14th - On Happiness, what a change

Been at work for almost 12 hours now and craziness finally calmed down for today. For the past 4 weeks I have been working anywhere between 80 and 100 hours per week, most of it overnight in a high stress environment. Two more weeks to go.

Last time I did this, I ended up standing on the ledge of a bridge. So I was very nervous. I also started on Chantix and my doctor was extremely worried since Chantix can increase suicidal thoughts.

My life right now is work and sleep. Nothing else. My body and brain are completely exhausted. I am battling severe migraines. I am dehydrated most days.

But guess what? I am still happy every single day. Feeling calm (with one 5 minute exception), at piece and just do my stuff. Morning makeup is down to 5 minutes if needed (15 if I really want to look fancy). I made through 13 out of the 15 pair of shoes so far... 

Every night I find a few minutes to read my baby girl a bed time story via face time. And if I do it from the car. We are both really looking forward to it. I do miss her.

Anyways. This is such a different experience than last time around. Thanks to the right hormones in my body...

Quote from: sarah1972 on February 14, 2018, 02:40:34 AM
> But guess what? I am still happy every single day.

Sarah, a huge accomplishment - especially under such stressful work conditions.  If you work any more you'll be cramming 25 hours into a day. People who haven't been on the ledge don't understand just how impossible it can seem to achieve happiness, and getting there isn't a simple wish - developing the positive life you deserve may require difficult choices and challenges.  And even more so, achieving happiness as a natural state instead of the exception.  I am proud of you. 

Feb 18 - Tears (of Happiness)

It is almost 2:30 AM, I am still sitting at work. (0 more minutes and another 12 hour shift is over. Tonight I shed so many tears of happiness.

As many know, I am married and while my wife is generally supportive, she is struggling big time with my transition and I know it. She cannot get used to my new name and pronouns. I keep telling her I don't mind and that I know how hard it is. She also refused to tell her parents out of fear of their health and maybe out of shame.

Long story short... she takes to them earlier this week, and her dad made once again a "funny" comment about my hair, even tough I was not even around (claiming I better go to a women hairdresser). In the past we have both ignored such comments but this time my wife just had enough of it... And she pretty much told him that I do see a women's hair dresser since I am a women (and then broke the news about me being trans), They took it better than expected and aside great concern about her, have been OK with it. This will now make a lot easier. No sorting out or cropping photos or hiding when they do FaceTime.

Now to top of this week, she replied to an email discussion on a family get together on my side - a thing she usually does not do - and for the first tie ever... when she talked about me used "she" and "Sarah"... I would sooo love to hug her right now. Will do that once I am back from my work trip.

One happy girl tonight.

So glad you are past another hurdle. 

I had also received an increasing number of "wow your hair is getting really long" comments in a puzzled or negative tone of voice.  After coming out, comments suddenly switched from negative to positive, or none at all - in all cases much easier to deal with.

Sarah I am so happy for you and your wife. This is a big step for her and for you. Just her referring to you as Sarah is wonderful but standing up to her Dad for you is awesome and shows how much she is trying. May you two and your daughter be reunited soon.

Hugs,
   Laurie

Feb 12 - Back
I have not gone away... After my crazy project, i just took almost two weeks away from my computer and mostly kept to it. Catching up on sleep, go to various doctors, hair removal and sleep some more. It was so necessary to take that time to recover and regain energy.

Not much news on the transition front - I think I am really in a somewhat boring phase where I take my hormones, live my life and wait for a good time to take the next step.

My project ended Jan. 25th, final credits have rolled and that was it for this time. Now starting to plan the 2020 project! Not much more to tell than before, everything worked out well on a technical level. As mentioned before, i have been fully accepted into the "girls club".

An update on the shoes: I ended having worn 14 out of 15 and had 6 incidents where I did not really have matching shoes for my outfit. Only ones I did not wear have been the snow boots (no snow)...

I have to admit, it was very hard to get back into a "normal" life. For 42 days, my day consisted of sleep, shower, makeup, work, eat, take makeup off, sleep.
Then bam I was back to my regular life.
Work, sleep, laundry, cooking, doing the dishes, take care of the kid, chores at the house, the honey do list, paying bills etc... I have to admit it took a bit to get back into it. I am still somewhat adjusting. I have to admit that not having all this to worry about all this certainly helped me focus on my transition a bit more. Now I am back to "soccer mom" most days (jeans, top, flats or sneakers).

While I do life full time at home, I also feel I am holding back a bit so my wife has an easier time dealing with everything.

I end this post with a picture taken during my project, there is a bunch of pictures where I do look better but they contain other people, so this is it...

Yay awesome! Looking great and all official [emoji5]

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

Mar 27 - 2 years, part 1

It has been pretty much 2 years since I admitted to myself that I am trans and told my wife. Wow what a ride! I'll split this post in two parts, this first part is just a quick recap and the "sad parts".

To recap my journey since: After some serious post party depressions 2 years ago, I did figure out that wearing a dress calmed me down and helped. One thing leads to another, I found Susan's and shortly thereafter had to admit to myself that I should have always been a girl. Coming out to my wife happened without much thought being put into it and she was pretty shocked.

I did take a few months and started therapy in September / October and by the end of December I was cleared for HRT. January 2017, I took my first blue pill (and a white one and a pink one) as a "trial" but after about 6 weeks feeling totally awesome, I knew it was right. In June 2017 I finally came out at work and started living full time since.

So where do I start? I guess I start with the "downs". Number one being that my wife is still taking it pretty hard and suffering. She does try her best to be supportive and I can be Sarah, but I do know that deep down, she is hurt and misses the old me. It is getting better over time and she is attending a local spouse support group, but we do have a long way to go. We hope to get her into a local therapist who is also fluent in her native language to make her communicate easier. This all makes me feel pretty bad about doing this to her and I have to admit I do slow down my transition a bit to make it easier for her but I do suffer from it. I guess this is the price of trying to keep our marriage intact, which is certainly a goal we have.

What I never thought is that some of my dysphoria shifted. When I embarked on that journey, I was very convinced that I could not be bothered about using wrong pronouns and name. Well, now I am. And most recently I started correcting people and state clearly how I want to be addressed. Same applies to Genital Dysphoria. Given how much time each week I spent looking at surgeons, I know I need to take a next step in the future.

I also have to say that many days I am impatient about my transition. I want bigger breasts, a prettier face, longer hair. My voice being a major issue. But it all takes time. And having a busy work and family life does not help either.

Mar 27 - 2 years, part 2

It has been pretty much 2 years since I admitted to myself that I am trans and told my wife. Wow what a ride! I'll split this post in two parts. This second part is about the happy moments and the goals for the next year.

Coming out did go extremely well. All my friends and family have been very accepting. Work was a total blast and out of the four I was concerned about, three sent super supportive messages within minutes. Customers have been great, I did get new ID badges all over the place and I am referred to as Sarah. HR changed my email address and ever since I am Sarah.

My Parents have been great, they still mix name and pronouns, but they get much better. My sister only complained that she always wanted a sister.

I really do consider myself very lucky.

Living my life as women and dressing appropriately has become an every day and mostly easy thing (well, not.... 20 pair of shoes and NONE fits my planned outfit... and the constant struggle about having a whole closet full of nothing to wear).

I am a lot more mentally stable. Even in high stress times, I have been very stable. I do still have dark moments, but they are much more focused in terms that I do know exactly what causes them over this general sadness.

Being out and about has been very easy and I have so far not had any kind of negative feedback or encounter. For most parts, I do not even get any looks and even my wife commented recently that she does see a questioning look sometimes which usually resolves itself by me being recognized as women. I am far away from fully passing but apparently, I can get by pretty well.

I do get a whole lot more male attention than I want. Anything from opening doors, offering seats or carrying heavy stuff for me on the positive side, to horny stares and d*** pics. Guess the last two have been really eye opening of what women have to endure every day and comparing notes confirmed my suspicion. I am still into women, so all their advances are lost in space.
I found 3 amazing girlfriends, one of which has known early on and they have been at my side helping and listen to all my new #GirlProblems. They also come to me with their worries.

In many areas I have been fully accepted into the girl's club (all the juicy stuff I have been told by the neighbors cis women was a clear affirmation... I know who had which procedure done secretly without their husbands knowing and a few more things I'll not share)
I have somewhat developed a style for myself and it seems to be working pretty well, need to complete some of it and with summer coming up there will be a bit additional cloths shopping I need to do.

So what's next for me?

For the next year of my transition I have a few goals. First and foremost, I do want my wife to get better and finally start therapy. I am trying to softly push.

I also want to get over being tired all the time. Not sure what it is, the first 6 month on hormones have been awesome and I had a lot of energy, now I am always exhausted. May need another trip to the doctor to see if there are any physical issues.
I want to work out more, need to lose my belly fat for pool season and I do want to find time for voice training.

There are a few tough subjects I must tackle with my wife. Legal name / gender change for one and surgery. Something we have been putting off discussing but I do notice I want to have girl parts pretty bad. We need to figure out where our relationship will go and what will happen around the dreaded topic of intimacy. Now that I am a girl, I have completely different needs and I do miss cuddling a lot, even a hug would be nice. I also found that around the 10 month mark of HRT, my desires came back after they had vanished around the 5 month mark.

Well, guess that is a lot and a lot to digest.

Let's see where my journey takes me.

Her his pretty much a before and after picture 2 years apart:

Sarah, wow - what a transformation.  And so much is going well.  You have a lot on your plate, and what you have achieved is amazing. 

Mar 29 - new Avatar and lots of smiles

Just a short post today...
Decided to update my Avatar. The picture is courtesy of Laurie who stopped by on her road trip. How much fun meeting her.

Guess I am starting to be seen more and more as women. My little princess had to go for her 24 month checkup and it was my turn. Not a single "sir" during the entire visit, "Your Mommy is going to hold you", "Can you sign the HIPAA form ma'm" etc... All culminated in the doctor stating "You are doing a great job with her and so does Daddy". This totally made my day. Especially given that I had no makeup, just jeans, heeled boots and a sweater. I completely slipped through as mommy of my kid. The doctor ended up being a bit puzzled since I did have this giant smile on my face all the sudden.

Same yesterday going shopping (OK, I was wearing a dress). Correctly gendered, used female fitting rooms and the lady at the eye brow booth was just wondering where my friend is (I usually go with my wife). So she could remember the two women coming at lunch for eyebrow threading and was wondering why I can alone.

Fitting room had a funny sticker "Monitored by same sex security staff". Which made me wonder if they have a MTF on staff.

Anyways, that is it in short.

Have a beautiful day full of rainbows and glitter !

Just found this thread Sarah!  I have to catch up.
I love your avatar!
Laurie is a peach , isn't she!

@ Sarah1972  Seeing your new Avatar/Profile photo makes me very happy for you.   I don't know why I didn't see it yesterday on your thread, but I missed it.   So anyway, I just want to tell you that you look terrific and happy in that photo.
I enjoy following your updates frequently but I guess I better check more closely next time you feel the need to change your Avatar and/or add a photo for us all to see.

Hugs and best wishes to you, Sarah, in your journey.
Danielle

I tried my profile photo on how-old.net and it guessed I am a 27 year old male.

Not happy here.....

Quote from: CarlyMcx on March 30, 2018, 11:00:22 PM
I tried my profile photo on how-old.net and it guessed I am a 27 year old male.
Not happy here.....

Ha, yeah, sometimes it is quite off. I had everything from 27 / female over mid 40 / male to 76 / female. It was about 50% right on gender and only once got my age right. If this is the future of Artificial Intelligence, then I am very worried. My current Avatar comes back as 41 / female, I'll take that.

Quote from: Alaskan Danielle on March 30, 2018, 05:36:58 PM
@ Sarah1972  Seeing your new Avatar/Profile photo makes me very happy for you.   I don't know why I didn't see it yesterday on your thread, but I missed it.   So anyway, I just want to tell you that you look terrific and happy in that photo.
I enjoy following your updates frequently but I guess I better check more closely next time you feel the need to change your Avatar and/or add a photo for us all to see.

Hugs and best wishes to you, Sarah, in your journey.
Danielle

Aww, Thanks Danielle... I am truly blushing, maybe I just see myself much more critical than others do. I still see a guy in a dress but given how often no one notices, I seem to be doing at least OK.

Quote from: Jessica on March 29, 2018, 11:55:15 AM
Laurie is a peach , isn't she!

Yes, she is. I love following the reports and seeing all the reports of people Laurie has met on her trip. There is so much positivity she spread, people coming out of their shells.

Sarah, I love your thread.  You are constantly moving forward in your timeline, I love it.  I'm sure your wife loves you and will start that therapy, it's obvious she's sticking with you from your writing.  I hope at two years I can be as accepted and at peace as you.

Bari Jo

Hi Sarah, I just found your thread. We are both similar age and questioned our gender around about the same time. It was mid 2015 for me. I didn't really accept that I am transgender until mid 2017, though. My wife is also struggling with my transition.

Your before and after photos show a wonderful transformation so far. It's awesome how you are just one of the girls now, living a life of normallness  (is that a word?). I am looking forward to reading more of your story.

Jayne

  Hi Sarah, I enjoyed our visit as much as you did. I do not wonder you got correctly gendered. I and many others have told you that you look good. I did not see a male sitting across from me in that diner. I saw a delightful lady with enviable looks. Sorry I arrived so late but really happy I did get to meet you.

Hugs,
  Laurie

Apr 2 - Ups and Downs

Well, this will be a bit different than the usual more upbeat posts.

After the awesome Thursday, I did somewhat get hit Friday and over the weekend. The outfits I bought also required a new bra, and I was so happy that Amazon had a Playtex 38A (95A). Based on other bra's I have I should be about an A cup. Well, guess I am not. They are there, I can see / feel them but after 15 month I have not even managed an A cup. While I really do not want big cleavage, I was hoping for a B and given how they started and still hurt, this is a disappointment. I went as far as looking up local surgeons for BA. Guess, I have not much of a choice.

Also found some awesome Ecco Shoes. Mary Jane's with a light heel, great for these long days at customers. Guess what? They don't fit either. I do own other Ecco women shoes the same size and they fit perfectly. Three pair of shoes in 1 week I had to ship back. Very frustrating.

And I cannot shake the additional pounds. No curves either (and I really want some curves)

So, I do have a good case of body dysphoria right now.

There are just days where I feel so stuck in my transition.

And my kiddo is teething. The last 4 teeth, she is really suffering and it completely breaks my heart.

But i have to pull it together. Tomorrow will be another day.

Hugs,

Sarah