History 2: Decisions and Schedules

Having decided that I was destined to transition and to get surgery I needed to start deciding when things would happen. One of the factors that set the schedule was telling the kids. I had already come out to my son (then about 11 years old) as a cross dresser but I hadn't told him anything else. My daughter (then about 6 years old) was pretty oblivious to everything that was changing with me. I really wanted to do it "right" so I decided to enlist the help of a professional. I ended up having the kids see a child psychologist who has experience with helping transsexuals through this. I first saw Dr. B in December of 2003. We immediately scheduled him to meet the kids (separately). He recommended that my daughter see him regularly for "preparation". With my son he recommended little work as he sensed my son was close to figuring out everything on his own and didn't want him to get there too far ahead of his sister. He recommended waiting until school was over before telling the kids so that if they took it poorly their schoolwork would not suffer. Also, I was told to allow them an adjustment period before I went full time. This meant that the earliest I could tell them was the middle of June and I ended up telling them during the weekend right after school let out. I chose August 21 as my date to go full time because that's when I was leaving for a week at the beach and I decided there was no way that afterwards I'd go back to being a guy.

The kids were told and allowed to adjust. People at work were told and allowed to adjust. Family was told and allowed to adjust. I took my week at the beach and returned to work as Nicole on August 30. At work it was pretty much a non-event. To this day, nobody has really asked me about it.