Motherhood and Menopause

Recently, I have had a new member of the family.  Not one that I wanted or invited, but one who I think could be around for some years to come.

I like to call her Mrs Menopause.

I knew it was always going to happen.  I have talked about the possible onset for a few years with female friends of a similar age.  But suddenly this year, as I rapidly approach a, shall we say, milestone birthday, I have noticed that I am suddenly juggling Mrs Menopause along with everything else.

Typically, she had to make an appearance around the time I went back to work full-time for the first time in many years.

I’m not naive but I think somewhere in my subconscious, menopause was something that happened to older women, much older women and I still don’t feel that old.  I also envisaged it being when my kids had all grown up and moved on.

Oh no, not a chance.

Let’s through Mrs Menopause into the mix with a teen in sixth form, a super stressed out teen in Year 11 and let’s not even get started on the whole Coronavirus saga.

Having said all of that, I think I am what you would call perimenopausal at the moment.  I have discovered that this is the period of time leading up to the menopause.  If this is still the early stages, I think I may need to either buy hard hats and ear defenders for my entire family or build myself a menopause shed in the garden, where I can isolate myself on the harder days.

So far, it is not much fun.

I am still juggling the constant demands of being a mother and all that brings.  Maybe I should have had my kids before the age of 25 rather than 25 through to 39?  Maybe they would all be grown up and moved on my now and I could nurse my menopausal misery on my own?

I am finding the mood swings are the worst thing.  I already suffer from PMS and at certain times of the month, but recently, I feel like my moods are wildly swinging in all directions at any time of the month and I am more prone to losing my temper, which is really unlike me.   This is no longer limited to one day a month.

The other problem is that my periods are now completely random. Sometimes I can go for a whole month in between, other times, they pop back after ten days.  There is no pattern to it and no warning.  This does not help the mood swings.

I hate feeling so tetchy all of the time.  I did try yoga in the summer, as someone recommended it.  It just irritated me even more. All that breathing and stretching, sadly, was not for me.

Thankfully the host sweats haven’t kicked in properly yet but I am starting to have the odd one every now and then and it is really hard to manage.  I need a fridge freezer to go and stand next to with the doors open just to regulate myself back to normal again.

But, the worst thing is the weird sleeping patterns.  Suddenly, after many lucky years of sleeping like the proverbial log until the very second the alarm goes off, I am awake by 4 am, sometimes before.  After that, I cannot get back to sleep, I am wide awake.  It is so annoying but happens pretty much every night. Thinking about it, this also is not going to have a positive impact on my moods.

The final thing is joint pain.  This of course might be wear and tear but along with everything else, I feel like my knees and legs should belong to someone twice my age.  I did lots of exercise over the summer during lockdown and the summer holidays which was amazing and I felt really good for it.  Once back at work, this has been difficult to maintain, but even if I wanted to to exercise, I find my joints are so stiff, I don’t really want to try it.

I know that there are things I can do to try and ease the perimenopausal symptoms.  I am trying to improve my diet as I know that on the whole, my diet is pretty well-balance, like everyone else, I like eating all the wrong things sometimes.  Apparently, certain foods such as high sugar, high fat or spicy foods and caffeine can be triggers, so eating more healthily can improve the symptoms, as can maintaining an exercise regime.

There are supplements that you can take, I am already taking Omega 3 regularly which is recommended but I haven’t tried any others so far.  I probably should discuss it with a doctor but at the current time, it isn’t easy to get appointments but I will certainly go and get some advice if and when things go back to normal.

In the meantime, I need to find away to juggle motherhood and menopause successfully.  My kids have all noticed that mum is ‘crankier’ than normal and I hate it when I know that I have been grumpy with them when it possibly wasn’t necessary.  My long-suffering husband is the one who gets the worst of it as I know that I overreact to things with him more than usual.

If anyone has any tips or tricks to help me, I would be eternally grateful as I know that this is only the beginning of what could be a process that can take years and years.