Christopher To Christina: An Answered Prayer

9. Appreciation

Over the course of a month, in sessions held twice a week, the shrink took me through my childhood and my life before and after I started dressing.

He wanted to know what my relationship with Mommy was like (wonderful in every way), when my father had died (when I was four), how well I had known him (not very well), how well I remembered him (just a face now), what my relations with girls had been like (always pleasant), what my relations with other boys had been like (uniformly disastrous), and so on.

Not surprisingly, we talked a long time about my life as a girl. He had me stand and walk around and sit down, and I silently thanked Mommy for the training she had given me.

He also asked me a bunch of questions about my weight and my eating habits. I didn't understand at the time what that had to do with anything but now I know he was trying to determine if my weight had anything to do with an eating disorder brought about by depression over my situation.

Two days after the eighth session, we were back in Dr Madison's office.

"The psychiatrist thinks you would be an ideal candidate for hormones. In his professional opinion, you're definately more girl than boy and he believes it would be in your best interest to proceed with transition steps. He wants to continue seeing you once a month but he has greenlighted you to start hormones as soon as you legally can," she reported, "He can't know were looking to start now, okay?"

Mommy agreed with the doctor while smiling at me.

"Now, the only question that remains is how your system is going to react to HRT."

"HRT?" I asked. "What's that?"

"Hormone replacement therapy," she said, "the treatment I outlined in our last visit. Your tests indicate your hormone levels are in the normal range for a pre-adolescent boy of your age. That suggests that if we intervene now, we should be able to altogether sidetrack the process of male puberty that would normally start in a year or so, while triggering in you, a girl's puberty instead. You'll have to come back here every other month so I can monitor how things are going. However, the way we are going to do it and be able to get away with starting you before the State mandated age of fifteen is in two stages. Well start with blockers to hold off male puberty and then start female hormones later."

I can not sufficiently express how elated I was, but that elation must have been all over my face. The doctor asked me if I was excited and wanted to know if I'd like my first blocket shot right then.

We discussed how the proper hormones would be made available for me in about twelve months and the doctor called a nurse into the room to administer the first dose of hormone blocker.

I was on my way.

I got my first shot of hormone blockers that day, as an injection. I've never liked needles, and giving the blood sample for the tests had been a torment, but I actually looked forward to being stabbed by Dr Madison's needle full of hormones,. The liquid in that shot was one of the life changing serums I so greatly desired.

Dr Madison made it clear to Mommy and I that, for now, we were not to tell anyone I was on hormone blockers. She made it even more clear that no one was to ever find out where the blockers came from, if they did find out I was on them. She said the only way they would find out is if we told someone.

She then explained that I would have to return every month for a check up and the administration of the next shot.

I asked her if there was any way at all we could start female hormones any sooner and she said told me that this was already breaking the law (a law she vehemently disagreed with), so to start any sooner would really set her up to lose her license to practice. The way she was doing it. I would be starting hormones early, but by the time changes start to become too obvious I would be turning fifteen and then it wouldn't matter.