All hilarity aside, this means I suffer from anxiety, sleep disorders, mood swings, and other hormone-related side effects more often -- to my dear family's detriment as well as mine. It could possibly explain my inability to concentrate and remember things too, like grocery shopping and locking my keys in my car (which I did just the other day).
It's making me increasingly frustrated.
Reckogning that perimenopause is a signpost of aging and subsequent infertility is kind of depressing in its own right. Oh yes, all women go through it unless they skip this stage by surgical necessity. But that doesn't make this part of the journey more enjoyable.
I am all the more confronted with the reality that our childbearing time is over as quick as it began, even though it's as much choice as circumstance.
Yes, I'm 45 and as strong as I feel some days, I know this is a precarious time at best to consider another pregnancy. As I recently told someone, I don't expect lightning to strike twice. It would seem foolhardy to put the Lord my God to the test (Matthew 4:7). But like the end of a lifelong frienship, feeling the door slowly close behind me still makes me melancholy.
In the meantime, I'm booking a consultation with an herbal specialist to see what I can add to my diet to help balance things out in the mood and stress department. I owe that much to me and my family.
