Day 364 – Angry Raccoon
A photo my brother took of Sam taking a photo of me taking a photo of the sun in the trees
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to give a quick little update on everything thats been happening. I have been pretty busy between classes, therapy meetings and my electrolysis appointments. Oh, and having a girlfriend, that DEFINITELY takes up some of my time!
All in all I am feeling pretty good about things, starting the semester as Abbey seems to have gone off without a hitch. I am consistently being maam’d and called by female pronouns all the time. I’m even starting to get used to using the women’s room multiple times a day. Though it is still weird seeing someone in the women’s room who used to know me as a boy.
Classes are going well, the two I am really excited about are Wheel-throwing and Darkroom Photography. I’ve already gotten some practice time in on the wheel and I’ve got a good 7 or so pieces done so far. I am working on a tea set I want to send to my cousin ella who is in Korea right now. I’ve shot one roll of film for my photo class already and I am excited to start developing them and seeing how my pictures came out. I am going to get really into finding some cool spots to photograph with the 35mm.
I have been gaining a bit of weight recently, today I hit 186 on the scale. For a while I was hovering around 180 but maybe the increased dose of estrogen is encouraging that extra weight. We will see how it effects my other measurements if it continues. For those of you who don’t know, I am literally weighing myself at least 3-5 times a week. My transition notebook is mostly full of my almost-daily weight measurements. I do this in hopes to capture as much data as I can.
On another note, my electrolysis appointment went well yesterday, it hurt like an angry raccoon but she managed to get all the thick and dark hairs. Hopefully it gets easier from this point on. We have weekly appointments booked all the way into December so lets hope I am mostly hair free by then!
Finally we get to the big thing I wanted to talk about, tomorrow marks my 1 year anniversary of starting HRT. I am pretty excited that I made it through one year already. It seemed to fly right by, and it seems the best parts are only just beginning! I don’t have anything special planned for the day tomorrow, I may go visit some friends of my girlfriend and hang out in Salem for the evening. I’m sure it will be a night to remember.
In my last few words I would like to thank everyone who has checked out my site, and especially those who come back to see what I am doing. It means a lot to me.
Thanks you,
Abbey
Day 346 – Breast Cordon Bleu
It has been quite a while since I last posted, I apologize for that. I kept meaning to post but something else just kept coming up! For that reason I am going to make this post a little longer than usual. After I got back from New Hampshire I set about enjoying the last 3 weeks of summer vacation before classes started again. The picture above was from just before we left the condo and headed to Maine.
Last weekend hurricane Irene came through and caused quite a stir. Everyone in my area was in a state of panic, getting ready up for the apocalypse. We didn’t get hit that bad out near the coast, It was mostly some heavy winds and rain on Saturday and some more rain on Sunday. We were lucky enough to not loose power but my cousins and aunts one street over lost theirs for about a day or so. The only real damage I suffered was that half of my Staghorn Sumac trees were bent over in the winds and a few even cracked. It couldn’t have come at a worse time now that we are getting right to when the berries are ripe for picking. Maybe I will still be able to salvage some and make some lemonaid..Who knows?
I’ve had two electrolysis appointments since I got back, last week I had quite a bit of regrowth and my electrologist thinks it is the hair that we treated near the beginning that grew back. It is kind of good and bad at the same time, it sucks that is is still growing, but at the same time she was able to get a lot of hair in the Anagen growth phase which is more effective. I also had my 2nd laser appointment this week. It is hard to tell how effective it is, but I think the hair under my arms looked a bit patchier than it used to. I should be able to tell for sure by my 3rd treatment. Even if it’s effects are minimal, it is still significantly easier than electrolysis.
I saw my girlfriend on Wednesday for the first time since we came back from NH. We made Chicken Cordon Bleu last night for her mom and tonight for my family. It came out fantastic! We’ve tried a bunch of recipes from Allrecipes and they have all turned out great.
This afternoon I took sam out for a short hike around Appleton Farms, one of the oldest farms in the country. They have 6 miles of trails that sit adjacent to 133 acres of grassland. The weather was perfect and the hills were absolutely beautiful. We ate some sandwiches by an obelisk and watched the cows graze the fields. It is nice to get away from the internet for a while. I have quite a few pictures of what I’ve done over the summer and I thought the best way to share them would be by making a new album with everything from the summer. So once I sort out the good ones I will be putting them up for your viewing pleasure.
I finally got the results from my most recent blood work and they look pretty good. My testosterone levels are down to 184.96 ng/dL, which is still not in female range but it’s a lot better than the 300-400 that it was before. My estrogen is siting at 50.16 pg/mL, that should jump up when I add more estrogen. I have my next endo appointment in 3 days and there is no reason why he shouldn’t bump me up to 4mg Estradiol per day. Looks like I will finally be on a respectable dose!
I think I will end it here before it gets too long. I am going to take my measurements and some new breast growth pictures tonight or tomorrow and I will update my comparison charts soon. Have a good Labor day weekend!
Abbey
Day 330 – Eleven to One
Candy & Popcorn
Howdy Folks!
It’s been a while since I last did an update so I thought I would talk about what I’ve been doing recently. Last week I went in and got my lab work done again, I should have my results back by next week at the latest. I am excited to see if my testosterone levels have dropped at all. Once I get them back I will do another round of measurements and update my breast development timeline. I know you’ve been waiting for that! (You filthy buggers) I go in to see my endo on the 6th of September, which happens to be the day before classes start. It was a total coincidence I swear! It is hard to believe that I just hit the 11 month mark of being on hormones. One thing I noticed recently is that my skin is extremely smooth and that my leg hair feels a lot softer and lighter than it used to be.
I am up to 6 hours and 15 minutes of electrolysis treatments, things are going good as always. After shaving 24 hours ago I can’t really feel any stubble at all, it’s nice to not have to shave every day.
Last weekend we put on a family reunion and we had about 50 relatives over that I probably haven’t seen since I was a baby (or never). It went surprisingly well and no one seemed to have any problem with me being trans (if they even noticed). And there was lots of food to be had.
This weekend me and my family are planning on going up to New Hampshire for a small vacation. It should be a nice little break before classes start up again. I will try and make an update or two while I am away!
Abbey
Day 315 – 45 and Life
Greetings and salutations!
Today I had my 6th electrolysis appointment. In 45 minutes we treated most of the regrowth, it was mostly light hair anyway. In the 6 days since I last shaved It had grown about as much as it would have in 24 hours before I started treatment (Much thinner though). I am really happy with how my my beard removal is going, I feel as though I am really lucky with how much progress I’ve made. I spent all evening working on my electrolysis timeline and got half of it done. I will be adding a second set of photos showing under my chin as well as two more to show today’s treatment. After this point I think I will only add new pictures every few treatments or else it will become an extremely huge file.
Tomorrow I am going to a support group that my therapist put together for the second time. It is a pretty small group (5-6) and we are all around the same age range so it should be fun. Out of all of the people who attend I am one of the farthest along but that isn’t to say I won’t be able to get anything out of it. At the very least I can help some of the others with any questions they have about transitioning.
I still haven’t sent in my name change petition yet. My mom is insistent that I at least consider a middle name of her selection. The problem is that she is so busy and stressed out dealing with one of my uncles who has a drinking problem, and now has a blood clot in his lungs, that she says she can’t deal with me changing my name right now. It is pretty frustrating and part of it has to do with the fact that she is still holding onto what remnants of my past self still exist. I will have to sit her down and talk it over.
P.S. My skin is unbelievable soft!
Abbey
Day 309 – The Beardless Lady
My lovely face after 45 minutes of electrolysis.
Yesterday I had another electrolysis appointment and we finally treated all of the dark hairs on my face! There are still a lot of white hairs but they are much softer and grow a lot slower. Even if I were to stop when all I had left were white hairs, it would still be much easier to keep my face smooth compared to when I first started. It is hard to say if the one laser treatment on my underarms did anything. It has been 7 days since my appointment and my hair is still relatively short. We will see how it turns out.
Lately I have been wondering if my odd post titles are a good or bad thing so I decided to make a poll. Are they entertaining? Or do they make it a pain in the ass to find what you are looking for? Let me know!
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