I’ll just give you the TMI warning now, okay? If you are squeamish about the biology of women, I understand; please stop now and read something else. 😉  If you choose to stick around, welcome – we’ll resume after this lovely metaphor about women and medicine…

Mushrooms

It says something about the state of medicine, where women are concerned at least, that the medical industry has yet to develop a simple, reliable, accurate test to determine whether or not a woman is ‘menopausal’, heading toward menopause, or dealing with some other variety of hormonal weirdness.  Seriously. Women have existed alongside men as medicine developed and progressed, and as far as I know the experience of our reproductive life-cycle hasn’t really evolved much… so what’s the hold up? Currently, the most reliable criteria for determining whether a woman has ‘gone through menopause’ is – and this is not the punch line of a cruel joke, it’s quite literally what we’re told – “once you’ve gone a year without having a period, you have gone through menopause”.  Um…what? Yep. That’s it. “Wait and see” is the best we’re offered.  0_o

I am counting down the days. Again. So far, 101 of them – and that beats my last count down, earlier this year, when I got to 92 days, then faced the ‘joy’ of disastrously and unpredictably heavy (and irregular) periods and the associated random opportunities to spot clean, or do extra laundry at a moment’s notice for a handful of months.  Now I am counting again.

I’m also wearing pajamas. Well, ‘sleepwear’ of some sort…  I’ve always preferred to sleep nude, as an adult. I find it more comfortable.  I like the feeling of sleeping nude… but I dislike the experience of waking abruptly in the night to find that linens need to be changed, the mattress needs spot cleaning, and a shower has become an urgent necessity; so, sleepwear has become practical beyond the sensuous preference for nudity. lol.  I find myself considering how nice it will feel to return to sleeping nude once I’m past the ‘pause… but I’m also sort of growing to enjoy the fun of sleepwear… is it an age thing? Is it vanity? Is it a good excuse to think of lingerie as ‘practical’? My taste is a bit toward soft and pretty, although in the dark…? lol.  I definitely don’t prefer long pajama pants for sleeping, though – I love the feel of smooth legs on clean sheets. 😀

I miss the clockwork regularity of my cycle in younger years… I do not miss the threat of fertility, though.  I’ve had a good cry or two over ‘I’ll never…’, that’s a pretty human experience, isn’t it?  Motherhood hasn’t been an aspiration for me, though. I’m not that woman; I have walked a very different path all along.  A brief period in my life – between about 27 and 32 – I had an undefeatable urge to reproduce.  It was an experience that felt very biological, and rather beyond my control or understanding.  At 50 I remain satisfied with a childless life, with choices other than parenting.   I’ve only ever met one man who moved me so, heart and soul, that I grieved openly in his arms that I would not ever bear his child – and although neither of us wanted children at that point in our lives, he understood me so well.  He held me while I cried, and said the soft tender things that lovers know to say, and the moment passed.  No doubt that will be one nagging regret I will have… one moment of poignant longing… one missed experience that will hold a tiny bright flame of wistfulness and sorrow that I feel now and again; to have been a mother, to have born his child, to have loved and shared and built someone new together to carry who we are in their heart and in their memory, would have been remarkable indeed.

Motherhood is not my path; I chose differently very early on, and I do not regret that, even a little bit.

That’s one promise menopause holds for me that means a lot; no more stress about unplanned pregnancy.  Sex without anxiety about reproduction is a very big deal in a very good way.  😀  Like it or not, most of the available options for birth control are actually pretty awful; powerful drugs with nasty side effects (including ruining a woman’s sex drive!), condoms (and the associated loss of sensation, inconvenience, and loss of powerful biological effect on mood from contact with flesh and bodily fluids), an assortment of grim options that involve inserting bits of metal, plastic, or other foreign objects (many of which can be felt by a partner, and not in a good way), or the last worst option – going without sex.  Medicine really hasn’t done women any favors with the crappy options we have for birth control – and society doesn’t do us any favors by playing head games with us about the ‘moral’ consequences before, during, or after.  It has gotten very tedious over 50 years being bombarded with constant reminders that sex isn’t okay (when it is) that my decision-making isn’t my own (when it is), or that I have some obligation to bear life in my body (when I don’t).   Yep – I’m more than ready to reach a point in my life when my ability to reproduce is behind me, and ‘babies!’ is not longer any element of a discussion about me, or my sexual decision-making. lol.

Menopause. There’s astonishingly little real research – or support – for this element of female experience.  It still surprises me. I mean – this affects all my partners, too, not just me. My emotional reactivity, my unpredictable hormones, my everyday health and well-being don’t exist in a vacuum! I keep expecting more from the medical industry… but in a culture where it’s okay to call a scientist who won’t work for free a whore, because she is a woman, why would I be surprised?

Anyway… the count down continues, and only 264 days to go to get my final test results back determining whether I’ve reached the ‘pause.  Most accurate test available!