1 Year on T!!!

Okay… so really long time no post… I apologize to anybody that really wanted to know how things have been going in my transition.  Life has been crazy over the last several months.  I moved across the country for a new job, while August remains on the west coast for a little while.  I’m living in a crowded house in the meantime, residents here include myself, 2 adult roommates, and 2 children.  With that many people in a 3 bedroom house doesn’t give much opportunity for privacy so I’ve found it hard to get around to taking pictures lately.  Additionally my eating habits went down the drain the first few months here, and I definitely gained a bit of fluff, as you’ll see in the pictures.

That being said, I’ve gotten back into going to the gym on a fairly regular basis, especially since I got a new car (so nice to not be reliant on my roommate for transportation anymore!!!) and eating better.  In fact, I am on day 6 of this year’s Whole30, and my roommates are both doing it as well.  We’re working on being healthier and less prone to eating the kids’ snacks that we were guilty of grabbing when we weren’t feeling like actually cooking.  So far, things are going awesome with the whole30, I’ve gotten into a good routine for cooking and I already feel like I’m past the worst of the cravings and am starting to feel my energy levels even out.  I can’t wait for another week or so to go by and to really be seeing and feeling the effects of it fully!

So, yesterday was my one year T anniversary.  As such, I have a series of comparisons to post.  There’s some pretty obvious changes, I’m much hairier than I was before.  I’m also a lot bigger, my muscles have grown a ton, and you can see some of the fat I’ve gained in my period of crappy eating too, unfortunately.  I think my hairline might have changed slightly, though not a whole lot… but it’s hard to tell since one is a fresh haircut and the other isn’t.  The full body pics I took were for my whole30 comparisons, so I’ll be taking another set of pics in about 25 days for that, which I’ll probably post on here too.  So, here are the pics and voice recordings.

Day 1 Voice

Year 1 Voice

All the pictures are pre-T followed by the one year pics.  I’ve definitely gotten a lot more body hair, though I’m still wishing I had more facial hair growing in.  That being said, I really started noticing the facial hair coming in more significantly than it had been within the last few months, so hopefully it’ll keep up that pace.  I would really like to go with longer sideburns, but need that stuff to grow in a bit thicker before I can realistically do that.

I’m pretty happy with how far my voice has dropped in the last year for sure.  I’d love for it to drop even more, since a good portion of my job is answering phones and I still occasionally get a “ma’am” from people on the phone, but in person I almost never get misidentified, unless somebody sees my legal name before meeting me.

Speaking of legal names, I got my court order and doctor letters to get the name and gender marker changes on all my documents!  I just mailed off the paperwork to get my birth certificate changed and a new one to be sent out to me, as well as a form for gender marker change that I have to mail to the DMV here and await approval before I actually go into the DMV to get everything changed.  I’m so excited!  Once I get the birth certificate back, I’ll take the necessary documents to social security and after that actually go to the DMV for my license.  This state has veteran ID cards as well, so will be getting that done too (it’ll be nice to be able to take advantage of veteran discounts and such without having to worry about having my DD214 on me, lol).  Can’t wait to have all of these things taken care of and no longer having to worry about the “Well, that’s my legal name, but I go by Alex” conversation with people!

Anyway, that pretty much gets you caught up on everything for now.  I’ll be posting a follow up with comparison stuff for this Whole30 I’m doing, and… well… we’ll see after that.  I can’t make promises on my posting frequency, I never seem to follow through on them… but I do want to try getting back into blogging more regularly.

Endocrinologist Appointment

Had my first appointment today with my new endocrinologist.  I’m pretty excited about it, she seems to genuinely care about her patient’s both physical and mental well being.  I told her about the dose I’ve been on since I began my transition and my frustration at my progress, especially how bummed out at the 4 month mark.  As soon as she heard that my period has still not stopped at almost 5 months in, she was all about upping my dose for a bit.  She wants to do labs in a few weeks to check my levels, including my thyroid levels given the family history of thyroid problems and my tests in the past coming back borderline.

Thursdays are my injection days, which I usually do first thing in the morning before I go to work.  Since I had the appointment today, though, I decided to wait until after the appointment.  That meant when I got back home, I got to do my first injection at the higher dose.  I’m pretty excited about it, I’m eager for my period to go away completely, as well as slightly speeding up other changes.  Hopefully I’ll see some results from this in the near future, and I’ll feel a bit better after the frustration I ran into at the 4 month mark.

In just over a week I’ll be doing the 5 month comparisons, but I doubt that I’ll see much effect from the higher dose so soon.  Just the same, hopefully having been able to go to crossfit again and eating healthier since I’ve been home for a bit now instead of living out of a hotel room, I’ll see some progress made on the fitness front if nothing else.  I know some of my shirts (such as the one pictured below) are fitting differently these days at least and making me feel more muscular than I really am.  I’m going to be sad when I outgrow some of them, especially this Joker shirt, and it seems like that might be in the near future.  We’ll see how much has really changed recently, however, when I do my measurements around the 19th.

Anyway, that’s really all I have for now, just excited to be upping my dose and am glad that the endocrinologist is so caring and eager to help me in my transition.  Expect a 5 months on T post in the not too distant future! 🙂

Stalled Out and Down

I’m sure anybody that’s been paying attention to my blog has noticed I didn’t post my 4 months on T update.  I took measurements, recorded my voice, and attempted to take pictures for comparison while I was in Nevada on the day I hit 4 months.  I couldn’t get any pictures in the hotel that the lighting didn’t make like I was glowing brightly, which was frustrating.  I told myself I’d take pictures a couple days later after I got home, I never did though.  I started comparing my measurements and saw that I’d gotten smaller overall and stayed the same or slightly bigger in the areas I wanted to get smaller (waist and hips).  Additionally, when I listened to the voice recordings, I heard pretty much no difference, or thought I heard it as being slightly higher than last time… I’m pretty sure that was just my imagination or tone of voice or something, but definitely did not get any deeper.

I know the measurements has a lot, or everything, to do with having lived mostly out of a hotel room the last couple months.  Been mostly doing body weight workouts when I’ve had the energy after work to exercise because the gyms at the hotels have only really had cardio machines and the small towns where I’ve been haven’t had much in the way of gym options.  I’ve also been not eating as healthy as I usually do since it’s hard to do in a hotel room that is only equipped with a small fridge and a microwave.  I’ve started learning what some better options are food wise, at least, but that was after a while of eating out too much.

To put it simply, when I compared the measurements and the voice recordings I started getting really bummed out, feeling like I didn’t have anything to write an update about.  By the time I got home last weekend, I didn’t want to take pictures anymore, I don’t want to see that they look either exactly the same as a month ago or that I’ve lost progress.  I am already frustrated that I feel like I haven’t made any progress over the last month, and in some areas have lost progress.  I have an endocrinologist appointment in a couple weeks and plan to talk to her about not really being where I want to be at the moment and see about maybe upping my dose.  I know that August, and others that I’ve read the blogs of, increased their doses for a period of time for similar reasons, so I’m hoping to do that.  It was kind of depressing feeling like at 4 months, when I’m still being identified as female probably about half the time, things are already slowing down to the point of not having any changes to write about for the last month.  I know, I need to be more patient, and that it could have just been a fluke that nothing seemed to have changed when I did my 4 month comparisons… but still it really got to me.

The worst part of it has been that I’ve had this week off from work… a week home alone (August is out of town for work) at that.  That means I have had nothing but time to think and dwell on this, along with missing people and feeling really lonely.  I’ve entered into one of those unproductive, down in the dumps moods I hate being in and feel like I just keep being a burden to my loved ones because I’m feeling needy and/or irritable and sometimes really suck at keeping that to myself, as much as I really don’t want to subject people to that.  I’ll come out of it soon enough, I’m sure, but I’m hoping that I haven’t been too difficult or negative for people to deal with this week.

Being back at my gym again has helped some, even if I haven’t seen any real visible changes or heard vocal changes in the last month, the last couple times I’ve been to the gym this week definitely showed me that I’m at least still getting stronger, despite having been limited to body weight exercises.  August said something about thinking I’m going to be stronger than him soon after I hit my 95# snatch yesterday, not far behind his max snatch.  I don’t know about that, as I’m pretty sure I’m further behind him on other lifts, but I’m glad that I’m still making progress in the strength area.

Anyway, this week is almost over and as next week gets closer I’m starting to feel better.  I have a couple plans for the weekend and Monday I’ll be back at work.  It’ll be nice to be able to focus on work during the day again.  Having time to myself to sort my thoughts is great, but too much time alone with my thoughts just means I let my thoughts get the better of me.  Another thing that will help is that August will be home later in the week after having not seen him for about two months.  Also looking forward to visiting somebody in the not to distant future that I feel like it’s been too long since I last saw.  All this traveling for work definitely has it’s challenges, fortunately I’m scheduled to be working locally for a little bit now.

That’s pretty much all I have for this month.  Hopefully I have something better to write about at the 5 month mark… I’ll probably post something after my endo appointment, actually, so doubt you’ll have to wait until I hit 5 months on T to hear from me again.  Until next time.

3 Months on T

So, I don’t have a whole lot to say about month 3 really.  It has been hard to workout regularly or in the way that I would like to since I’m living out of a hotel room lately and the “fitness center” in this hotel is pretty much just cardio machines.  I’ve been trying to make myself do travel WODs, which ends up being about every other day, so not even working out as often as I was before.  Travel WODs also mean not really having much for strength building.  I also don’t have the equipment I need to continue my upper body program, which is really frustrating.  The next location I’ll be at looks like there’s at least a lot of regular gyms around, which is better than nothing.  I can at least work on strength stuff there.

That kind of leads into my measurements today.  Not a whole lot has changed over the last month in this regard.  I don’t have a scale to weigh myself, but I did get the other measurements. My shoulders and chest went up about half an inch, and my thighs and calves on both legs went up about a quarter of an inch.  Everything else stayed the same.  This has a lot to do with not working out as much as I’d like, and probably also not eating as well as I normally do.  I’m worried I’ll lose my muscle I’ve worked so hard to gain, but I’m probably being paranoid or at least it won’t be as bad as I think it’ll be, lol.

I have a new work clothes photo to add.  After my first assignment I saw that a lot of the others were a bit more casual than I was, so I brought some other collared shirts with me this time, including a polo shirt.

It already fits me way better than it did when I first got it a couple years ago, but I don’t have any pictures to compare back to unfortunately.  At least I have a picture now for future comparisons.

And now for the less clothed comparison photos for this month.  I’m including pre-T, 1 month, 2 month, and 3 month.  I don’t really see much change in the front and side pictures, maybe can tell that my thighs are slightly more muscular, but it’s hard to tell since I’m wearing different underwear this time.  I try to make as much the same as possible in the pictures, but I had forgotten and wore that pair a couple days ago.  This pair fits differently.  Oh well.  The back picture looks like there’s way more definition there.  I don’t know if that is the case, or if it’s the lighting in the hotel room that makes it so.  This whole traveling thing is really going to make comparisons a lot harder since the environment I’m taking these photos in will be so different.  So yeah, here are the pictures.

And for the final comparisons I have for this month, here are the voice recordings.  I feel like there’s a pretty big difference with each month that passes.

Day 1

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Other things I’ve been noticing.  I’m definitely getting bigger below the belt again.  Not a huge difference, but noticeable.  Also, I’m finally breaking out pretty much all over, but I think that has to do with the increasing amount of hair I’m finding all over my body.  I swear there’s more and more dark hair on my thighs every time I look at them.  Additionally, the facial hair around my lips and chin are continuing to get thicker, and I finally have one that is not just slightly thicker and darker than the rest of my peach fuzz, but is totally a full blown whisker on the bottom of my chin, so hopefully I start to find more of those.  There’s also one on the side of my lip that looks noticeably thicker than the others, but it’s really light and I’m starting to think it’s a grey one growing in.  The hairs that will someday form sideburns (I hope) are also getting a lot thicker, though still blond.

That’s pretty much it for the 3 month update.  Hopefully I’ll have more to write about either in my mid month post or at the 4 month one.  I suspect that if I can find a place to work out at when I get to my next assignment, I’ll see a lot more growth again.  Until next time!

11 Weeks on T and Work

So this is a day late, but better late than never.  The last two weeks I’ve been out of town on my first assignment with the new job.  It’s been a good experience so far.  The work is pretty easy, at least for me, and I’m exceeding the supervisors’ expectations apparently.  They told me that I’m doing better within my first two weeks than some people that have been doing it for years.  They also don’t seem to think I’ll be doing this for too terribly long because, as they put it, the really good people tend to move on to better positions really quickly.

One of the nice things about this new job is getting to dress fairly nicely for work.  I took pictures of what I wore every day for the first week because A. I like wearing those clothes, it makes me feel both masculine and professional, and B. I figure it’s probably good for comparisons to measure how well the clothes fit as I continue on with my transition.  So, yeah, I have pictures for today’s post.  I have 2 different grey shirts, so that’s not a duplicate image.  Obviously some of the shirts fit better than others, but overall they are all a little too big.  I would like to get them tailored to fit better, but with still being pretty early in my transition, I don’t want to do that and end up growing out of them really quickly as I continue to gain muscle mass.  So going to deal with the too big of clothes until I feel like I’m not going to be changing clothing sizes any time soon, as well as until I have more money to spend on clothes.  Maybe then I can get more pants too so I can better match the color of my slacks with the color of my shirts.  It’s hard to find pants my size, unfortunately, so limited choices on colors when I went shopping for work clothes.  Anyway, here are the pictures I took in the hotel bathroom.

 

Another nice thing about this new job is that I talked to one of the supervisors about my prefered name and pronouns and not only did he abide by my wishes, but any time somebody slipped up with the pronouns, he and the other supervisor were quick to correct them (or themselves if they accidentally slipped).  It was nice to not have to worry about deciding whether I wanted to have the awkward conversation of correcting people I worked with or just deal with hearing the wrong pronouns, they took care of it for me.

As far as people I interacted with outside of those on the team, I found it was pretty split down the middle on how I was identified by strangers.  I got a couple people that avoided pronouns when talking to or about me too.  It was an interesting experience and made me wonder what variables come into play when people subconciously label me as one gender or the other, or neither if they are confused by me.  It seemed a little like the women were more likely to identify me as male, and the men as female, but that was definitely not the case every time, obviously.  Either way, it was definitely exciting to have anybody at all identifying me as male even after hearing me speak.  That’s still something new for me, though it seems to be happening more frequently now.

Anyway, on to the last couple weeks’ transition related observations.  The biggest thing I noticed over the last two weeks is that all of a sudden my facial hair is growing back in like twice as fast as it was before.  When I first started T I was able to go a couple weeks between shaving and not really have all that much peach fuzz to get rid of.  Now it seems like that two weeks of growth is happening in a single week, which means I should probably start shaving more frequently until it grows in thicker and looks more like masculine facial hair instead of wispy feminine hair.  The hair on my upper lip is still getting gradually thicker, though still not enough to really be apparent if you aren’t looking for it.  I’ve also noticed the area right below my bottom lip (think soul patch spot) is starting to get a little thicker as well.  I’m kind of excited about that.

I’ve also noticed the hair on my thighs has continued to get a lot thicker and darker.  There are really dark hairs growing in areas of my legs that used to hardly have any hair at all, let alone dark ones.  I think the hair on my lower legs has gotten thicker too, but that’s harder to tell since it was already fairly thick and dark compared to the hairs on my thighs.  I can’t really see any dark ones, but I can definitely feel more hair on my butt as well.  I had some dark hairs on my stomach to begin with, but only a handful, those seem to be multiplying slowly as well… so yeah, basically most of what I’ve noticed the last couple weeks is just that I’m getting significantly more hair growth all over my body right now.

My 3 month update is going to be when I’m on another business trip, so I need to try to remember to bring the tape measure with me so I can get measurements when the time comes.  I might just have to weigh myself before I leave and figure that’s close enough to the 3 month mark since I doubt I’ll have access to a scale at the hotel.  We’ll see what I decide to do this weekend, I guess.  My other measurements and voice recordings will all be on the day I hit 3 months at least.  I’m eager to see what has measurably changed when I gather the data and put together my next post.

That’s really all I have for this post, so until next time!

2 Months on T and Getting Stronger

So I decided not to write the post on Thursday, when I hit the 8 week mark, and instead waited a few days to do a nice even 2 months in post.  I think this is what I’ll be doing for the long run.   I’ll post an update on the whatever week mark that is about halfway through the month with commentary on whatever I notice going on at the time, maybe some pics if I’ve noticed some particularly cool change.  The big updates, like today’s, will be on the month marks and will include all the measurements, comparison pics and everything.

So, the biggest thing that has happened recently in my transition is my strength gains.  In the last 10 days I have gotten 5 new records on various lifts.  The smallest of which have been 10# jumps.  Most of these I didn’t even push to my true max because I either ran out of time before the crossfit class was going to start, or I didn’t want to completely burn myself out because of what was going to be in the WOD, such as when I tested my deadlift and there were going to be box jumps in the WOD… I didn’t want to miss a jump because my legs were too tired and bang up my shins on the box.  So, yeah, huge strength gains all of a sudden in the last week or so.  It’s exciting to see the effects of T starting to kick in in this area.  Here are the lifts that I did.

Lift             Old Max            New Max             Difference
Jerk                   105#                   115#                      10#
Strict Press         70#                     85#                       15#
Back Squat        170#                   180#                      10#
Deadlift              230#                   250#                      20#
Bench Press      120#                   135#                      15#

As for measurements, I’ve gained quite a bit.  Below is a screenshot from the excel document I’m keeping record of everything in.  The pic shows all the measurements, the difference between current measurements and pre-T, as well as the measurements taken at the 1 month mark.  Measurements are in lbs and inches.  Most of my gains seem to be in my upper body, but my thighs have also become noticeably larger and stronger.  I noticed they looked different a week or so ago and have been really looking forward to taking the measurements today to see how much of a difference there actually was.

In my last post I mentioned having noticed some darker facial hair starting to grow in on my lip now.  I managed to actually get a picture of it before I shaved it off the other day.  I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get anything since it’s still really fine, but I definitely was able to capture some of it.  I’m pretty excited that it’s getting to be enough to show up on camera.  I feel like it won’t be too long before I’ll have to start shaving more frequently because I’ll start to get a wispy little shadow on my lip if I don’t.  A bad wispy mustache is not something I want to even attempt to rock, but it’s still exciting that it’s growing in just the same.  I haven’t noticed any dark hairs anywhere else yet, but keeping an eye out for them.  It’ll be interesting to see how much facial hair comes in grey too, since I have a decent amount of salt in my hair these days.  Wonder if I’ll be able to notice it growing in thicker as easily if it’s grey in some areas as opposed to the obviously darker hairs on my lip.  Anyway, enough speculating, here’s the pic.

And now for some comparison pics.  I’m so bad at getting the positioning the same in comparison pics, so it’s hard to tell what’s an actual change in appearance and what is just from me standing differently.  Just the same, here’s a couple comparison pics of me in a tank top.  Additionally, I took some pics of me in my favorite tank top that I own so I can do comparison pics with it in the future.  I feel like the angle I got in the front shot of that shirt shows my lats better, which have definitely grown and I wish I had a good pic from before to compare it to.

But wait, there’s more!  I haven’t given you the full body comparison shots yet!  Pre-T, 1 month, and 2 month.

So, looking at the measurements and the side pics, I can tell my stomach has fluctuated some.  One thing that the first and last pictures have in common, however, is that both were taken during my period, so I’m a little bloated, and that may very well be attributing to that little pudginess at the very bottom of my stomach in those pictures that isn’t there quite as much in the 1 month one (my period had already come and gone by this time last month).  Otherwise, when I look at the front comparison pictures, it definitely looks to me like I’m getting more definition in my abs as my transition is progressing.

I was also surprised to see some definition in my chest starting to develop in the pictures.  I had been able to see it happening when I looked in the mirror, I’ve been noticing my breasts becoming definitely less perky and being able to see my pecs beneath them now… and possibly got way too much enjoyment out of the fact that I can flex my pecs and see them move now.  Just the same, I didn’t expect it to show at all in the pictures since I’m covering a good portion of that region with my hands.  It’s not a huge amount of definition that is visible, but I’m definitely seeing some changes going on there.

In the back comparison… well, I just feel like I look so much bigger now than I did even a month ago, let alone pre-T.  I wasn’t expecting that big of a change, even though I guess the measurements I took should have indicated that I’d be seeing that.  I can definitely see how much my lats have grown in this comparison.  In all three sets of pictures, but especially the back one, I can see my traps are significantly bigger now as well.  This was another thing I could see to a certain extent in the mirror, but I definitely didn’t realize exactly how much it had changed until I was putting together these comparisons.

So, I mentioned that I’m currently on my period, unfortunately.  This is something that I can’t wait to have stop eventually.  This is my second one to start since I started T.  Typically this has been something that is a huge ordeal for me: debilitating stomach cramps and back pain, nausea and vomiting, ridiculous fatigue, and usually a pretty heavy flow… the first day being the worst, then the second being uncomfortable but not interfering with my day to day activities nearly as much.  This time around it’s been really light, just barely more than what I’d consider spotting.  There was a little back pain, but no stomach cramps or nausea at all.  The fatigue was not near as bad as normal either.  Cravings for sugary things were way stronger than normal, though, but I almost wonder if that is connected to the lack of nausea this time.  It’s possible that the nausea I experienced before kept the cravings away because it just made not want to eat anything for fear of it not staying down.  Overall it’s been a significantly more pleasant experience than I’m used to.  I still really look forward to just not having it at all, but it was a nice change of pace to not have to take a ton of ibuprofen just to make it through the first day.  In fact I was able to go to the gym the first day, though I had to talk myself into it because I wasn’t really feeling like it.  I have almost always skipped the gym the first day of my period in the past because of the cramps and nausea I usually have.  I wouldn’t say it’s been a good experience, it’s still my period, but it has been a relief to not have it take everything out of me like it used to.

Other changes I’ve been noticing… My skin, particularly on my face, has been more oily than I’m used to.  At first there was a little acne on my face, back and chest and I began mentally preparing myself for a complete breakout, but it never seemed to quite happen.  There were a few blemishes here and there, but never anything real bad… so I guess pretty comparable to when I went through puberty the first time, I never did get hit real hard by acne.  Granted, I still have a lot of time ahead of me for things to go crazy, but right now after a tiny increase things are back to normal already.  We’ll see what happens as time goes on.  Because of the oiliness I’m having to use face wash more these days.  It’s the first time I’ve actually been able to use products to wash my face without having it drying my face out, though.  I’ve actually noticed an improvement in that sense and feel that my complexion and skin health is surprisingly improving from what it was pre-T, especially my face.  The increased oil production seems to have fixed an imbalance that had left me with dry skin problems in certain areas before.

And finally, time for the voice recordings.  There’s not really a whole lot to say about this, just listen and you can hear how much it’s changed for yourself.  Getting further and further from my original very feminine, almost childish voice I started with.

Day 1
Month 1
Month 2

So yeah, that’s pretty much everything I can think of at the moment.  Expect another transition and general life update around the 8th, but the next big comparison post will be in a month.  So much has changed in the last month, more than I expected.  I’m really excited to see what next month’s comparisons show!

6 Weeks On T and a New Job

So after my last post I decided to just write a post every couple of weeks so that I’ll have more to write about as well as to discourage myself from looking so hard for changes to take place and to be more patient with the process.  That being said, if there’s a week that goes by and there’s a huge amount of change that suddenly happens, I’ll definitely post that week, but at the slow but steady rate things are going so far, every other week seems like a good pace for updates.

Six weeks in as of today.  There’s been a lot that has happened in the last couple weeks, both in regards to transitioning as well as life in general.  August and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary of when we started seeing each other with getting all dressed up and going out to a nice restaurant for a really great dinner.  Our 2 year marriage anniversary is just around the corner, but because of work related travel and such we won’t be able to spend it together so was nice to celebrate this instead.  While I wore a different shirt than the one I got married in, the vest and slacks were the same and I was surprised by how differently they fit now.  There’s still plenty of room to grow into them, but they aren’t quite as ridiculous as they had been a couple years ago.  It’s my intention to wear these every anniversary to see how much change there is in how they fit over the years, at least until I out grow them if that ever actually happens.  August definitely out grew his wedding clothes, what he’s wearing in the more recent picture is a completely different but better fitting outfit.  So I have some pictures, starting with when we got married almost two years ago, a picture of the two of us together from the other night and one of just me.  Not the highest quality pictures and there wasn’t any good angles really showing how the clothing fit in the wedding pictures, but here they are.

  

As I mentioned, work related travel is preventing us from celebrating the 2 year anniversary of our marriage together, unfortunately.  Both of us will be traveling for work, though.  August has a temporary thing he’s doing that’ll take him out of town for a little while, which we’re both excited that he has the opportunity to do this work.  It pays pretty well and should give him some more experience to put on his resume, which should help his search for a more permanent job that is relevant to his degree.  Additionally, I’ll be starting a new job in the near future that will involves a lot of travel.  So much travel that I may be looking at being home as little as one weekend a month.  I’m both excited about the job and nervous about it.  I’m excited because it pays well and has a huge potential for growth.  If all goes well, I should be looking at getting promoted to a position that involves less travel within just a few months.  That period of time should be shorter than my deployment was, plus I’ll be home at times throughout it, even if I’m not home a lot, so shouldn’t be near as bad as deployment.  Not to mention it’s not like I’ll be stuck on a ship in an isolated community the entire time either as I’m just traveling around the States, so there shouldn’t be any readjusting to socializing and everything that I had to get used to again when I came home from the deployment.  We made it through me being deployed and the depression and anxiety problems that I had after I got back from deployment and this should be a walk in the park compared to that, so I know it won’t be anything we can’t handle.  Just the same, I’m nervous about being away from home again.  I feel like things in our relationship and in my life in general have only recently returned to normal and I’m not real eager to let go of the stability that I’ve just barely gotten a taste of.  I worry that about whether it’ll put any stress on our relationship, directly or indirectly.  But as I said, it shouldn’t be very long before I can get into a position requiring less travel, and we’ve been through worse.

In fact, I think the last year since I’ve returned from the deployment is probably what will end up being the period of time that will have tested the strength of our relationship the most probably up until we have a kid and eventually find ourselves disagreeing about some aspect of raising the child.  It’s bound to happen, nobody can agree on everything.  The depression and emotional instability I went through after the deployment probably put more stress upon our relationship than the separation during the deployment itself.  Not to mention the concern over finances since I got out of the military and knowing that August has been struggling with his own feelings as his job hunt continues.  While I find myself worrying about the stress of another period separation in our relationship, I also find myself feeling optimistic about where things are heading.  This job pays well and will help us feel more financially stable, especially whenever I do get promoted to something that involves less travel as it should also mean even higher pay.  Additionally, I think that August’s temporary position will lead to either a permanent position at that company or at least significantly aid him in finding one with another employer as it’ll give him some much needed experience, as well as allow him to network with people from other companies.  So the stability at home that I’m seeking, and being financially comfortable again, really aren’t that far away and there’s no reason to think that we can’t push through to it when we’ve been through much more difficult things… but I’m a worrier, it’s just how I am, unfortunately.  So while I intellectually know things will be fine and are about to improve significantly, I am still going to worry about how being away from home so much in the next few months is going to affect us.

And now for an abrupt change of topic.  I haven’t really said anything yet about my transition over the last couple weeks.  My voice has dropped even lower.  I could feel it in my throat and hear it in my own head when I spoke, even though nobody has said anything about it.  There’s times where my voice cracks now, particularly when I’m having to shout at one of the pets to stop doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing.  When I listen to the recording, I feel like I almost sound like a pre-teen/early teen boy now… not quite, still has some femininity to it, but it’s getting there.  I’ll just link the Day 1, Month 1, and Week 6 recordings for comparison.

Day 1
Month 1
Week 6

Stuff below the belt is still pretty sensitive, but I think I’ve gotten used to it.  After starting T I started having some major dryness issues down there (actually been having several menopause type symptoms, such as hot flashes, as well) and it was getting really bothersome, occasionally even interfering with my being able to get to sleep or satisfaction during intercourse.  A little over a week ago I started taking fish oil and vitamin E daily, and it seems to have helped a lot.  There’s really only been one night that it got bad again since I started taking those, but I was pretty dehydrated in general that day due to the retail job I’ve been working (and am leaving thanks to that new job I mentioned) and not being able to have my water bottle with me when I’m out on the floor.  It makes it a lot harder to stay properly hydrated.  Anyway, outside of that one evening, I really haven’t had any further problems with this issue and hopefully it stays at this level that fish oil and vitamin E are enough to treat it.

A couple weeks ago, I think just after or maybe a little before my last post on here, I noticed a some darker looking hairs on my lip.  It’s hard to say when those first showed up as I wasn’t really looking for them at first, I just mentioned to August that I had recently shaved (trying to keep the peach fuzz off my face) and he asked me if there had been any dark hairs yet.  I had no idea if there had been or not because I hadn’t been looking for it, but as things started growing back in I kept an eye out for them, and sure enough there was a small handful on my lip.  It started off looking like just 3, maybe 4 darker but barely noticeable hairs on the left side of my lip quickly became several (enough that I didn’t take the time to count them) across both sides of my lip.  They are still pretty fine, so hard to see, but they are definitely darker and thicker than what used to be there or anywhere else on my face.  I haven’t noticed anything in other areas of my face yet, but am keeping an eye out for that.  I hope my sideburns start getting longer soon, but I know that the facial hair will grow where and whenever it feels like regardless of what I want.  Since the facial hair is starting on my lip (August’s started on his chin and sideburns), it makes me wonder if I inherited my dad’s mustache growing genes.  For the first 18 years of my life, my dad had a Tom Selleck level mustache like this:

Although he didn’t pull it off quite as well as Tom Selleck did (after 18 years of seeing him with it, it looked SO weird when he finally shaved it off though).  I’m pretty sure I also wouldn’t be able to pull that off so well either, lol.  That being said, I’m excited to be seeing anything growing in right now, regardless of where it is, even if I think mustaches are a bad idea for most people, myself included.

1 Month Comparisons

So, as of today, it has been one month since I started T.  Since last month was a short month, the 4 week and 1 month mark happened to land on the same day.  I skipped writing a post last week as I wasn’t feeling like there was much change between the 2 week and 3 week mark.  That being said, when I compared the pictures, measurements, and voice recordings I took today and compared them to the pre-T ones, I finally started to feel like there’s some progress being made.  In this post will be the pre-T/first day, 1 week, and 1 month recordings of most the stuff.  But where should I start…

I guess I’ll go with my voice recordings first, since that’s the thing I’m looking forward to changing the most.  It isn’t a huge change, but after taking several recordings attempting to use the same tone of voice as I did for my day 1 recording and all of them coming out noticeably lower, I don’t think I can deny that there has been any change there anymore.  I still sound distinctly female, but not quite as much like a small child as I used to sound.  You’ll see what I mean when you listen to the recordings.

Day 1
Week 1
Month 1

I’ve made some good progress physically as well.  I’ve gained about 2.5 lbs from my pre-T weight.  Gained a surprising 0.75″ in my neck and chest, 0.5″ in my shoulders and biceps, 0.25″ in my forearms and thighs, calves stayed the same, and I lost 0.25″ in my waist and 0.5″ in my hips.  Most of those gains, not surprisingly, were more recent and the changes between pre-T and the 1 week mark were negligible, so will just keep it at comparing pre-T and 1 month.  Here are some photos, pre-T on the left, 1 week in the middle, and 1 month on the right.

The things I notice the most are I seem to have more ab definition (or maybe it’s my imagination because I want more defined abs so badly, lol), as well as growth in my shoulders and back.  As always, it’s hard to tell what is difference in lighting/position in which I’m standing and what is genuine changes taking place.  For a little while I thought I was starting to get a bit of a muffin top going on, but I noticed when I poke at my sides, they are surprisingly firm, rather than the squishiness I would have expected if it was as much fat as I thought.  Not to say there isn’t a layer of fat there still, but I think there’s been some growth in my obliques, which also attributes to the it looking like there’s some overall ab definition developing there.  Again, I might be seeing things just because I really want to and there might not be as much definition as I think.  Even if that’s the case, then at least for the first time pretty much ever, I’m having a more positive perspective when I look at my stomach, which is just as good as there being actual definition there.  I’ve had a lot of very negative feelings in regards to my stomach for a very long time, so either way it’s a nice change of pace to feel a bit better about myself when I look in the mirror.  I have also been getting more and more comments about looking “jacked” when I wear tank tops lately (such as in the pictures below… which is with a sports bra, by the way, no binder), so I know there has to be some growth going on in my arms, shoulders, and upper back if others are noticing things.  This has been making tank tops my favorite shirts to wear these days since they show off the one part of my body that I’m actually really happy with.  I’ve been starting to take pictures of myself in some of my shirts so I can record the changes in how they fit as I continue to grow.

 

I think that pretty much covers all the big changes over the last month that are T related.  For those that were wondering, I did finally hear back from the pulmonologist a couple weeks ago about the ground glass nodule in my lungs.  The second CT scan showed that it hadn’t gone away as hoped, which means it wasn’t just the remnants of the upper respiratory infection that I had not long before the first CT scan.  The good news is that it is stable.  I just have to get it checked annually so they can catch it if it ever starts growing.  The doctor seemed as if it wasn’t something to be too concerned about as things are right now, but should definitely make sure I keep an eye on it.  I’ll bring it up, along with the potential thyroid stuff, to whoever my new doctor ends up being whenever I get in.  New insurance starts up in a couple weeks so getting a new doctor isn’t too far off.

2 Weeks In

So didn’t really have a chance to write this yesterday, when I actually hit the 2 week mark, but one day late isn’t bad, right?  There’s not a whole lot to report on.  My voice seems to have dropped the tiniest bit again when I compare recordings, but I think it’ll still be another week or two before it’s an actual noticeable amount.  As it is, it really just sounds like I’m saying it a little different.  I made several attempts to record my voice trying to mimic the tone of voice of the original recording and they all sounded a bit lower than the first one, so I think it did actually drop a little and isn’t just me saying it different.  Just the same, I want to wait until I have a more definitive change in that regard before I post any voice recordings.

Beyond that, the only real change has been below the belt.  The first couple days of week 2 it was very intensely sensitive.  Just the feel of my underwear moving when I was walking around was bothersome and driving me crazy.  By the end of this last week, however, it seems to have evened out or I got used to it.  It’s definitely still more sensitive than before I started T, but it’s not so sensitive now that I don’t want to walk around.  There has also been a undeniable size change since pre-T down there.  That pretty much covers it, I think in the next couple weeks I’ll have more exciting news since it’s around the 3-4 week mark that I’ve heard some of the changes start happening.

In other news, my brother visited this week, just dropped him off at the airport this morning.  It was really nice to see him, I feel like I don’t see my brothers enough, but it costs money for us to visit each other since we live a couple states away now.  I wish I had had more time to actually go do things with him, but he seemed pretty happy just trying out local restaurants.  Unfortunately I still had class this week, so that interfered with the amount of time I had with him, especially since I had two exams this week.  The chemistry one wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t need to do much for it, but the math one I felt very unprepared for and was behind on homework, which he collects on test days.  There were a couple days of trying to get that homework done when he was visiting, and I felt bad for but he kept saying it was fine.  When I took the exam yesterday, I went in feeling like I was going to bomb it (I’m not bad at math, but he rushed through a lot of stuff that I didn’t know because he assumed his students came from a class that already covered most of it, but I tested into the class so had not done that) but ended up feeling really good about it afterwards, so we’ll see how I did when we get the tests back next week.  Hopefully it’ll have been worth the time I put into it instead of doing more fun things with my brother.

I ended up signing up for the Crossfit Open last week after they announced the first workout and I realized it was definitely within my ability to do the male division if I do the scaled version.  It makes me feel good about my abilities to look at the leader board on the Open website and see how many guys are below me in scaled, knowing that most, if not all, have been guys all their lives and I just started taking testosterone.  It hasn’t even been long enough for me to start really seeing much strength gain from it yet, especially since the only thing scored so far is the first workout which was a week ago.  It sounded like strength gains are one of those things that takes around 3 weeks to start really seeing.  Planning on doing the second workout today.  Have to do that one scaled as well, I’m not good at overhead squats yet (you can decide with each workout whether to scale it or not).  I’m excited to see where I sit on the leader board at the end of this.  As long as I’m not in last place, I’ll be happy, but after the first workout I don’t think I’ll be near last place at all, even though I won’t be ranked very high either.  When I looked the other day, before the second workout was announced, I was on the second to last page so had a lot more people sitting below me than I expected.

1 Week on Testosterone

So, my first week of HRT has passed by faster than I thought it would.  There’s not a whole lot to report on at this point in time.  The second injection I did completely unassisted this morning, and went very smoothly, so feeling confident about giving myself those now.  As far as any changes I’ve noticed this first week goes, they are very small.  Things like noticing that my lower range is getting a little easier when I’m singing along to the radio in the car, and that the upper range is starting to tire my throat out more quickly than it used to.  In general my throat has felt a little tight or sore, particularly during the second half of the week.  My speaking voice seems to have dropped the tiniest bit, but one would only realize it if you hear my day 1 recording compared immediately to the recording I took today (took several to make sure I was saying it in the same tone of voice so that the difference wasn’t just me not saying it the same).  That’s to be expected though, from what I understand my voice changing enough that it becomes actually noticeable is still a little ways away.  Since the change is so negligible, I think I’ll wait until there’s a more definite change before posting voice recordings.

Hmm… what else… Oh man, the last couple days my metabolism seems to have really kicked things up.  I seem to still be okay waiting until after class to eat lunch on Monday and Wednesday, since I don’t wake up as early so there’s less time between breakfast and lunch, but Tuesday and Thursday so not the case anymore.  I get up significantly earlier on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so the time between breakfast and when I get home from class is probably a good 3 hours longer than Mondays and Wednesdays and now I’m finding that I feel ridiculously hungry well before my classes are over, even though I get home at around the same time all 4 days.  Up until starting T, this wasn’t the case and waiting to have lunch wasn’t a big deal.  Definitely need to start bringing a lunch with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays now.

The most noticeable change for me so far, besides the metabolism thing, has taken place below the belt, which seems to be pretty common from what I’ve read from others taking T.  I’m definitely feeling more sensitive there, as well as there seems to be a little growth happening already.  Nothing too drastic, but definitely more noticeable than any of the other changes going on so far.

I took some measurements today, not because I was expecting changes from T already, but because I’ve been doing an upper body program that one of the coaches at my gym has put together and I’ve gotten some comments on my arms/shoulders lately that I think has to do with that program, especially since all the change has been in my upper body.  While I’m eager to see how my body grows and how much strength I gain on T, I don’t expect to really start seeing any significant HRT related muscle gain for at least a couple more weeks, but it is nice to see the progress I’m making from other efforts.  I’ve gained about 1 lbs since the Whole30 measurements, and 0.25 inches in my neck, shoulders, and both biceps, as well as 0.5 inches in my chest.  My waist, forearms, hips, and legs all stayed the same measurements.  In addition to the change in size, I’ve gained quite a bit of strength in the upper body movements, such as pull ups, handstand push ups, and bench press, amongst others.  I took some pictures, but the only ones that show any difference are the ones of my back, which makes sense since I think it’s mostly my back and chest that have made the most progress, and my chest gets covered by my hands until I one day get top surgery.  So here are those pictures, 3 Feb 2015 on the left and 26 Feb 2015 on the right.  I’m only on my 3rd week of this upper body program, but definitely feel like I’ve made a ton of progress thanks to it.

 

So yeah, that about sums things up for this post.  I’m sure I’ll have more to write about as the weeks go by and the changes start really taking effect.  I’m trying not to let myself be impatient about it or to start imagining changes because I’m looking so eagerly for them.  Easier said than done sometimes, but I know they’ll come when they come.