It worked.

My Ninshubur, sukkal of Inanna, messenger and proxy and right hand, she did it. When a date for SRS with Dr Bank, successor and disciple of Dr Suporn, opened up, that very same minute she requested it and I now have it provisionally reserved.

Ninshubur here is a virtual Ubuntu 18 server running in the Google Cloud, with a fake cron script running in a screen; it scraped the calendar once a minute, parsed it, prioritized available dates, then sent a message on my behalf directly to the clinic using the google mail API. Tech I needed to learn or brush up on for this: VMs, cloud services, python, PIP, google API, CSS, HTML tables, Android notifications, robot.txt, and I would have kept going as needed. I feel this means I’ve done my part in propagating the trans girl hacker stereotype, though I’ll happily continue that so long as I draw breath.

So.

I’ll have vaginoplasty on December 6, 2019.

That’s in eight months. Exactly as long as I would have from my first missed period if pregnant. Time to prepare for what may be the hardest and scariest thing I’ve done so far in my life.

I’ve never had surgery. I am needlephobic.

I need to tell my mother.

I need to get in shape: lose enough weight (but stay stable for the month before), exercise to get cardio and circulation maximal, reduce any tendency to insulin resistance, reduce stress levels. I need to start sleeping properly and rush less. I need to make sure I am (and stay) HIV negative. I need to look into everything else – skin spots, teeth, breast exams. I must become as healthy as I can.

I need to get all other transition components to a state I am OK to wake up in with my new anatomy – carry out voice training, electrolyze the remaining facial hair (which is all white), decide on my new initials and change my name to its final form, then get a new passport.

I need to prepare my life: My apartment must be ready to recover in, unless I do so in my ancestral homeland. If so I must ensure it can be rented out in the meantime somehow. Renovations e.g. elevator and bathroom need to be ready so I can stay there. I need to prepare my team so they can handle it when I am gone. I need all projects to be in a stage where my absence entirely for at least a month does not break them. I need to prepare my friends for my silence and following weakness. I need to ensure I have support in place – prepare therapist in case of post-op depression, work out and establish contact with gynecologist, pact with friends who can help me during the helpless period. Set up time off – vacation, holidays, then sick leave, and last more vacation if needed. Prepare my habits to make time for years of dilation and wound aftercare.

I need to prepare my mind and heart. I need to learn to endure pain and fear and confusion and hunger and chaos. I need to finally learn to set boundaries and guard my time. I need to make myself ready for something scarier than I’ve ever been through. It’s on the level of traumatic childbirth and I really will think of it so. I must gain control of my life for the sake of she-I who will be born.

Certainly all of these things have value of their own, and it is true I use this now necessity as an excuse for my higher self to take priority. I let my greater fear defeat my lesser fears. I’ll take a major step forward in transitioning, not only my body, but all of me so as to be able to accommodate that. I welcome those side effects.

But most of all, I want my post-op body healed up by my 40th birthday.

And it now looks more likely than not that I will.

Praise be Ninshubur, sukkal of Inanna! Praise be Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth! Hail Eris! Hail Discordia!