Today my period is five days late, and since it is the first time in the last ten years when I can be absolutely sure I am not pregnant I am left to draw the conclusion that it is the beginning of the end. So in the spirit of something or other I thought I might record the experience of menopause right from the first inkling of change.
I am currently 47 and three months. I started menstruating the month before my 15th birthday (I know, I was a late developer), so that's been thirty two years and four months, excepting three pregnancies and the breastfeeding which stopped my cycles for 8 months with Lewis, about a year with the twins (for the record, that's Jacob and Thymian) and about a year with Mirinda (I think, not sure at all now I think about it because I fed her till she was two and a quarter but it definitely didn't stop that long).
It's kind of funny because for the years between being 40 and 45 I kept vaguely hoping to get pregnant again, at one point seriously enough to buy ovulation tests to try and figure out when my fertile period was. Although I continued to get a sense of disappointment each month it never turned into something obsessive or upsetting. I guess that by now I had reached an acceptance that that part of my life was done and I was too old to conceive again, but the whole menopause thing still felt a long way off. So when I failed to start bleeding last Thursday I was more confused than anything. I have been laid up in recovery from a minor op since my last period so I knew there was no way I was pregnant. It felt a little sad because it might have been nice to think, even for a day or two that I might be pregnant, if only to laugh with relief when I discover not.
Being utterly ignorant on the subject I decide to look up the symptoms of menopause. We've all heard rumours about the hot flushes but I think that comes much later. I mean I am assuming that they don't just stop dead one day, I assume there is some kind of warning. And I find that basically as the hormone levels start to drop your cycle will do all sorts of funny things: get shorter or longer, get heavier or lighter, miss months at random, and most significantly cause 'floods' and other unpleasant side effects. This is what confirmed it because I experienced my first flood last month, a very nasty experience, sharply painful cramps followed by a faintly humiliating uncontrollable rush of blood that I was not in a position to deal with.
So here I am, trying to kid myself that I am not that old. Being a parent has been the most important thing in my life ... is that sad, I'm not sure, far better than some mere job having that status I suppose. For a long time it was my self-definition. I feel melancholy, and nostalgic for the smell of a tiny baby and all the beautiful bits of parenting. Part of me wants to rage against my hormones for not letting me have one last bite of the cherry, but I have always vowed to grow old gracefully and if time is up then who am I to argue with nature.
