Chapter 1 The Perimenopause Discovery

 My 38 birthday came at a heavy price. I awoke that morning feeling virtually the same as any other but there was a difference. I was changing. My life was about to be spun around and turned upside down and if I hadn't thought the world had it out for me before this well I  was sure of it now.

 The fun part is I had no clue it was happening. I the unsuspecting victim to a sort of midlife crisis had just awoken to the grand plan on my 39th birthday...I was going to have another baby!

 Oh, the excitement it would bring to my family and friends. The fulfillment that as my children reached their older ages I have another to replace my misplaced feelings of trying to avoid the fact that I was aging.

 I would have a baby and that would stop the clock and any nonsense time thought it had on me.

  Holy shit was I was about to embark on the weirdest life ride yet and believe me my life has been a series of bad choices, strange happen chances and bizarre people that I have decided molded me and readied me for this new trip.....a second adulthood. I did not agree or ask for it.

 Before I go too deeply into how the baby diaries began I will start by saying after being 6 years into this now, I know my irrational hormone born thoughts from the ones that are well thought out or planned.

 Perimenopause brings so much excitement when it comes to decision making. It is one of the clever sides of hormones that tricks us into believing the strange behaviors we start taking on are normal.   The perimenopause mind will believe anything it wants to hold onto youth. It will convince you your life is ticking by and your eggs are a shriveled up heap of dust collecting in your uterus.

 I recall looking up the statistics of getting pregnant at 39 and the chances were not pretty nor promising. I beat myself up every month until I decided I wasn't going to allow it anymore.

  My hope is by the end of this story you will see the lengths I went to hang on to anything I could that resembled my youth.

 I hope to allow someone else a glimpse into the struggles I am still facing and the intense mental toll perimenopause and the years leading to menopause takes on a woman.

 I did not have anyone in my life to talk to about the experiences I was having. My mother never had any issues and made me feel crazy for having pointed out I was feeling so badly. I will go into relationships with our parents later but it felt like the generations ahead think it is strange to talk to one another about this second woman adulthood. Afraid it will portray us women as weak perhaps.

 There is nothing worse than feeling like you are losing your mind every minute of the day and having doctors and family discount it because "you're too young to be going through menopause". Well turns out I am not.

 Although My story does not end in a baby at 44 what it does share is the relationships I obtained in the years I worked with a donor.  (yes there are men out there that help single women have babies...for free), and the incredible truths I share with other women I meet about not judging one another and how to be more accepting and empowering to one another.

 I am not ashamed of the decisions I had to make based on my own intuitions because I came from a family that never discussed openly anything really. The shame would be not sharing my story with someone that is going through the same thing internally.

 It is a struggle to understand the pains of womanhood and even now at 44, I can see that my thought process has changed. I see myself more clearly than I did only 5 years ago. I can look at the actions I took and understand that they made sense at the time even though they were erratic and absolutely insane choices at the time.

 Maybe this is a little self-help for myself as I enter the next phases of life and maybe it's my way of being an anarchist by not agreeing to shut my mouth about this worst acid trip ever called perimenopause.

 I hope that sharing these incredibly weird and strange experiences I have had will open the doors for other people to talk about it with their friends.

   From my first inclination from profuse sweating.
  To the second discovery that leads to me finally realizing this was more than anxiety attacks.

 My intense hormone changes were driving me to irrational thoughts so much so I even began private relationships with men just for the purpose of us having a baby. It was at the age of 39 that I met Matt, my contractual partner in baby-making.

 Matt was one of three men that would end up being my contractual donors with signed papers and all. He and I were to meet each month for two years. Matt and other men out there that were agreeing to help women like me should be applauded. They request nothing in return for helping a woman or couple acquire a baby. I was only one of thirty women Matt was helping. My other donors would become interesting parts of this story as well.

Neither of these two components of perimenopause was the deciding factor for me to realize I was going through something medical or life-changing. Nothing made me even think anything was different or worrisome except when the underlying conditions that are attached began showing up later.

 It was only after the years of trying to achieve a baby with strangers turned friends and sweating in my clothes daily that I awoke and became alerted.

 You would think that being an educated woman that knows to the second when her body is ovulating, I  would have been clued into the extreme changes taking places but I didn't; and no one bothered to mention it either. GIRL POWER!

 Instead, I began a life of mental changes, growth, secrets and personal ups and downs. The secrets were deep and made me question everything about myself. They also comforted me. My secrets were mine. They wrapped me in warmth at night and made me believe all the beautiful things I needed to get by with. They confused and scared me only when I tried to share them so the world became full of secrets and learning that no one really knows anyone in this world...

 Especially ourselves.