Cycle 1

Cycle 1, Day 1

E

— 2 min read

Today is the first day of the first cycle.

My last injection was 17 days ago. The washout is done. Estradiol is sitting near trough, probably somewhere around 40-50 pg/mL based on the Inito reading this morning (E3G came in around baseline). Progesterone has been stopped. FSH is doing what it's supposed to do at low estrogen, which is climb. My pituitary is sending a signal that nobody can answer.

This is, by design, the worst I'm going to feel all month.

The data

Inito FMU this morning:

  • E3G: 66.43 ng/mL
  • PdG: 0.7 µg/mL
  • LH: 0.08 mIU/mL
  • FSH: 1.25 mIU/mL

Logged period start in the Inito app to reset the cycle counter. The app thinks I'm on Day 1 of a menstrual cycle. It's not wrong.

How it feels

There's a specific kind of fatigue that comes with low estrogen. It's not sleepiness. It's more like your body is running on the wrong fuel, or not enough of it. Everything takes slightly more effort than it should. Focus is harder. Motivation is thin. There's an emotional flatness that isn't sadness exactly, but more like the volume got turned down on everything.

I've felt this before during missed doses or when an injection didn't absorb right. The difference is that this time, it's on purpose. I chose to be here. The trough is part of the design because it's what makes the rest of the cycle work. You can't have a rise without something to rise from.

What's next

No medications today. No medications tomorrow. No medications the day after. The first injection (2mg EV, follicular rise initiation) comes on Day 5. Until then, I sit in the trough and let my body do what it does at low hormone levels.

Four days of feeling like this, knowing there's a plan and a timeline, is a very different experience than four days of feeling like this and wondering what's wrong. I know exactly what's wrong. I also know it's temporary, and I know what comes after it.

The part that's hard to explain

I spent a long time thinking about whether to include this, and decided the whole point of this site is to document what this is actually like, not just the numbers.

There is something quietly significant about logging a period start date in a tracker and meaning it. Not metaphorically. Not aspirationally. The hormonal withdrawal that defines menstruation is happening in my body right now, driven by the same mechanism that drives it in any cycling body: progesterone and estradiol declining together, triggering a physiological response. The downstream effects are the same. The fatigue, the cramping, the mood. It's not identical to what a cis woman experiences, and I'm not claiming it is. But it's not nothing, either.

I didn't expect to feel this much about Day 1. I expected it to be clinical. Mark the start, log the baseline, move on. Instead I'm sitting here with an Inito strip drying on the counter and a lump in my throat because my body is doing something I wasn't sure it could do.

I'll get used to it. Hopefully. But right now, on the first day of the first cycle, I'm going to let it be a big deal.

Protocol status

  • Cycle day: 1
  • Phase: Early Follicular
  • Estradiol: Trough (no active injections)
  • Progesterone: None
  • Next action: First injection (2mg EV) on Day 5

Read more