So, I have been very into skirts since my junk grew back to pre hrt size, especially since I can't tuck day to day while trying for a baby, and skirts are genuinely saving me from constant dysphoria because I can make my very obvious bulge disappear. In this regard, they are magic.

I had an experience today that just, broke my brain a little bit. I ordered a garter belt because I got into thigh highs a little while ago, (I'm in my dressing like a slut phase okay?) and they do not like staying put, but it came with a mesh g-string I wasn't expecting. I tried it on and was shocked to find I could actually comfortably put things away in it, so it was approved for wearing. Anywhore, I wore the garter and g string as a surprise for my wife today, and put only a skirt on when I would normally wear shorts or leggings under a skirt, especially now that it's getting colder. I did not realize how much I rely on feeling the fabric on my butt to be able to trust that I'm covered! I had absolutely fuck all on my cheeks under my skirt, but it was impossible for anyone but me to know that because skirt! I thought a couple times I was showing something I hadn't meant to because I couldn't feel anything on my cheeks, but then remembered the skirt. It's like, I can dress however the fuck I want and show all the skin I want, but also look totally modest and not draw attention! The possibilities for being secretly dressed all sexy like with nobody knowing are limitless!

Skirts are rad, and I'm so glad I'm able to wear them!

Had a follow up appointment with the balls doctor and he says my testosterone is higher than he expected for not being on androgen suppression, but it's not high enough to reliably have a baby, so I have to come off my estradiol and progesterone as well for the next 3 months, then we'll do the vasectomy reversal, then I have to stay off until my wife is pregnant and the pregnancy is likely to succeed. At minimum, 7 months of what feminizing effects have stuck around reverting to male characteristics. At worst, I could be looking at a year, at which point, I'll probably say fuck this we're doing IVF.

I'm honestly numb. I still have my identity, I still look kind of femme, but it feels like I was on meds to hold back the man, and if I want to be a mother, I have to go back to living in hell for a while.

Please do not suggest adoption/donors/fostering. My wife and I have been talking a lot longer than any of you about how we want to become parents and we have ruled out those options. Unfortunately users on imgur couldn't follow this request.

I finally got to go to a formal event in a dress and heels! 🥰

I had spent about 3 hours trying to get halfway decent looking eyeshadow without success, but I realized my brows just extended low enough to give me about 2 mm of real estate before my crease, so there was just nowhere for the eheshadow to go. My sister does does my nails, but does brows as well, and last time I saw her, she did my brows too, and who knew having somewhere to put makeup makes it easier! 🤦‍♀️😅 I managed to bang this out in about 15 minutes in an attempt to just see how it is with shaped brows, and I guess I need to get them waxed regularly now!

I'm going to preface this rant into the void with the info that everything I'm going through is by choice purely because I know it won't last forever. It fucking sucks, but I definitely think I'll say it was worth it later in life.

Back in May, I found out my doctor had been doing my cyproterone way too high, so I had absolutely no measureable testosterone in my system, so I was told to stop taking it for a few weeks so production could kickstart again, then we'd reintroduce it at an appropriate dose. During those weeks, my wife and I found out the price of the legal process to use a sperm donor was going to be astronomical, and entirely upfront, so the decision was made for me to stay off cyproterone and after some tests see if I'd need to get off estradiol and progesterone as well. Some of the tests have been done now, but we're still waiting on others, and I'm in a holding pattern of taking estradiol and progesterone and no androgen suppression.

Man symptoms started reemerging a month or 2 ago, and I just feel like I'm living life under a suffocating blanket now. I had the full effects of HRT and felt more alive and happy with myself than ever, but now it feels like the real me has been ripped away. I get days where it's basically impossible to avoid going into a blind rage over the smallest thing. I can't tuck anymore because I need to be making sperm, but my wardrobe has almost entirely shifted to form fitting clothes, so the evidence of my junk being wrong is very in my face all damn day when clothes used go magically make it go poof and now genital dysphoria is a constant companion. I feel like a goddamn wookiee with how dark and fast my body and facial hair is growing again after laser got it to the point where I could go 2 or 3 days without shaving. One of the worst effects is that I can't enjoy what had become my favourite past times in reading and crocheting because my ADHD is presenting male typical symptoms again and my ability to focus is completely shot. My emotional state is constantly hanging by a fucking thread, and I'm just fucking exhausted all the fucking time.

I could have avoided all this had I just frozed some goddamn sperm before I got a vasectomy, but I was a goddamn moron who didn't realize being a mom was not only an option, but something I'd want.

My wife works in a daycare, and we're in the age bracket where friends are having kids, so lately she's been hearing about people getting pregnant or having babies a lot and thinking when will it be my turn, and not to belittle her problems, but I'm dealing with that question both with having a baby and with my medical transition. I see posts of people getting the results they wanted from HRT, and I want to just be happy for y'all, but the brain gremlins saying I was already getting those effects or was close to them, and now everything is in reverse come to the front and I just get upset because I'm not where I want to be. The steps towards motherhood are proving very difficult for us and our relationship is taking a beating because of it. I'm not really worried about a breakup, especially seeing as we both know my current struggles will come to an end, but we had like, half a fight in 10 years, and now we're snapping at eachother, then apologizing, semi regularly.

TLDR make sure you set yourself up to never need to come off HRT once you start, because it fucking sucks to have the weight of the wrong sex characteristics lifted from you only to have them slammed back down.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2003, so I've lived with and known about it for a long time, and something I've noticed since I stopped taking my cyproterone to get some usable sperm going is the stark difference in my ADHD symptoms. Everyone in my family has been diagnosed, and my sister has always said it presented differently for her because girl than it did for my brother and I, and I didn't notice a difference when I started on hormones, but now that I'm not taking androgen blockers, so boy juice is back in my system, the difference should have been obvious.

The big one is that I can't sit down and read anymore. My wife got me a kobo for christmas and it got me so much back into reading like I hadn't been since puberty. I'm currently at 47 books read this year, but the amount of time I spend reading in a day has plummeted in the last month once the testosterone effects really kicked back in. I've been going with 70+ pages a day (318 page record whoop) 3-5 days a week all year and now it's been 2 weeks since I started my last book and I'm only 72 pages into it.

I'm not doing as well at work either. I have 5 tasks to do A B and C can all be done, but they need to be in sequence, so I'll start A, spot a tool or bit of material I need for D, and start carrying it around until I spot something for E and put down what I'm carrying and pick that up, then realize I was starting on A and I've been wandering around with materials for other tasks for 15 minutes.

The lack of ability to focus on one thing is suddenly going strong again, and I doubt this is unique to me, but I figured I'd share my experience with ADHD symptoms being effected by HRT, but bodies are wild. I never would have thought about it as something that could be affected until my sister asked about it.

I stole this dress from my wife and after putting myself together, makeup, boobs earrings, hair, I caught myself in the mirror and had to stop and process because I was actually attracted to my body, which has never once happened in my life!

Edit: Thanks for all the kind words everyone! ❤️ Today went really well, and now that I know I'm comfortable in a mini dress, I need to get more! Oh, wait, stores are in full autumn mode already! 😭

I'd never dyed my hair before but after I realized I was trans, The Urge™ has been strong to do something fun with it once it was long enough, and now I have!

My wife and I were together 10 years before I realized I was trans and started transitioning, and she thinks of me as a totally separate individual from my pretransition self. In her mind, she is married to current me, and we had to take down our wedding photos because it upset her to see her ex-husband plastered on our walls. We also both pretty regularly say [deadname] was an asshole, like that person isn't me. Does anyone else's partner compartmentalize like this after you transitioned during your relationship?

Almost 2 months ago, I found out my doctor had prescribed a dose of cyproterone somewhere between 4x and 14x what I should have been taking. 25mg (half a pill) a day is probably in the range for an on label prescription, but androgen suppression is basically all off label from what I can tell, including spironolactone. I have stopped taking any type of androgen suppression and my T levels seem to finally be getting back up to the cis female range because I'm getting horny again! 🥳

Before I switched to cypro, I had only just started experiencing the emotional difference between boy horny and girl horny after the initial libido drop off from starting HRT ended and then cypro killed any and all horn for several months. Now that it's coming back, I haven't been experiencing what I would describe as male arousal at all. I've gotten erect, but when there used to be pressure in my dick, the "desire" sensation has moved back and up to inside me and it's new and exciting but strange. I'm just hard as a byproduct I guess? I think the part that I find weirdest is that it happens all the time, same as random boners would. Just sitting around, doing whatever, and then, BAM, randomly mildly aroused for the next 15 minutes and sitting still becomes very difficult.

Hopefully it comes back all the way to where it was in the before times, because sex once every other month was killing my wife 😅

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/45020519

Each coloured band represents the genre of a book I read this year. Purple is fantasy, pink is romantasy, teal is scifi and red is romance. I was just learning to crochet when I started, so I made some mistakes and choices at the beginning I wouldn't now, but it doesn't need to be perfect. This covers the 36 books I read from January through June, and it's just over 6' long! No idea where I'm going to store/display it when I'm done!