More of our journey...

I know the key to a 'good' blog is to post regularly. My apologies for not posting of late. Interestingly there has been much to report in the life of Anneke, and I will endeavor to update in stages. As always, I check with Anneke first before I share.

Let's see - on May 6th we went to see Dr. Metzger Anneke's pediatric endocrinologist to check her hormone levels (to ensure the blockers are working) and chat about where s/he is at. At this visit Anneke wanted to talk about starting testosterone.
You'll have to tune into a future post for then details of that discussion. Suspense!

Last Friday we met with Dr. Melady Preece a renowned physiologist specializing in gender identity issues. We had been meeting with a psychiatrist off and on but Anneke didn't 'click' with him and his office was a bit hard for us to access. Dr. Preece and Anneke had met several times at the Gender Spectrum Families conference and instantly got along well. It was helpful that she had an office dog - Anneke loves animals.

Well that appointment too, deserves a post all to itself. Melady was wonderful at cutting to the chase and asking Anneke some pretty challenging quesitons about her gender identity. The not so suprising discovery is that it is really hard to be gender-fluid in our world with very binary views of gender. Anneke has asked repeatedly, why can't I be a girl and take testosterone. Melady's answer was basically, you can, but it will be very hard for the rest of the world to understand - and it would end your girls hockey career. Needless to say, we will not be starting testosterone any time soon. Anneke is disappointed - but hockey is far too important to her to sacrifice.

On another note, today is my 42nd birthday. I am normally quite melancholy around my birthday, but this year is much better. Birthdays often remind me of things I had hoped to achieve by my 30's, now 40's and have not yet achieved. I can be very hard on myself. This year has been one of the most difficult years of my life for many reasons and this birthday is a celebration of enduring that with myself and my kids intact. I like myself in my 40's more that I ever did in my 30's. I used to focus on more superficial accomplishments like number of friends, money in the bank, body changes etc.. but those no longer resonate as the key to a happy life. I have found my path as a mom, a friend and a midwife. As corny as it sounds, I have come to realized a happy life is really not about getting to the destination, it is about truly enjoying the journey. The picture above is one of our favourite places. The girls and I go regularly to Trout Lake near our house and walk the dog. We sit on log, watch the dogs play and watch the sunset. Today I celebrate my journey.