Taking My First Steps into Perimenopause
By: Yael Wolfe
Tags: Menstruation, Feminism, Aging, Women, Menopause

As I stood in the kitchen yesterday, crying and bleeding and making myself tea, I realized how ridiculous my response is. Do you know how much I want to get pregnant at this stage in my life? I don’t. I really just don’t.

I don’t want to share my body anymore. I’m finally finding my way back into it for the first time since I was 12. I’m already struggling with hormonal shifts that sometimes knock the wind out of me. I don’t want to endure the hormonal shifts of pregnancy. And also…the thought of giving birth just seems goddamn perilous at this stage in my life. I get exhausted and terrified just thinking about it.

I don’t think I want to get pregnant anymore.

But…I did want it. I wanted it very badly at a certain stage in my life. And the one time I was pregnant — long before I was ready — was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.

There’s something about the possibility of pregnancy that I cherish. The idea that I could have a baby if I wanted always felt so powerful to me. I need that hope.

As illogical as it sounds, saying goodbye to the Mother phase of my life even though I no longer feel so strongly pulled toward that role, is very, very sad for me. I don’t want to let go of the possibility that it could happen. That I could somehow achieve that dream that I had for so long to be a mother, to carry around a happy, kicking infant in my belly, to feel the primal power of the female body in the act of birth, to feed a baby from my breast, to raise a child who looked like me and my mother and my grandmothers and…

It feels devastating to let go of that. I cannot even put it into words the sorrow I feel when I try to wrap my mind around the reality of never getting pregnant, giving birth, or raising a child of my own body.

There’s something about the possibility of pregnancy that I cherish. The idea that I could have a baby if I wanted always felt so powerful to me.

And yet, I see the absurdity in this sorrow, having just stated how much I do not want to get pregnant.

A decade ago, it would’ve been my privilege to wrestle with car seats, wake up at 4 a.m. for a sick child, haul my brood off to school each day, endure their screaming and roughhousing after dinner, set aside my writing in order to spend time with them.

But today…am I more selfish? Or just tired? Because I don’t particularly want that.

I’m so grateful for the simple life that I have in which I am free to do what I want when I want. I can sleep a solid 8 hours without disruption. I can buy myself a treat at the end of the month because I don’t have to worry about the orthodontic bill. I can go to the grocery store at 8 p.m. when it’s nice and quiet there and not have a child screaming at me because they are hungry or bored or want me to buy a sugary cereal that I’ll happily purchase just to get them to calm down.

Copyright Yael Wolfe

Why should I be sad to lose these things that I don’t particularly want anymore?

I think I am mourning the ghost of the life that I wanted. I am mourning the daughter I lost and the daughter I wish I had had. I am mourning the supportive partnership I so deeply wanted. I am mourning the house we would’ve lived in and the dogs who would have tracked mud throughout it.

And I am mourning the passing of a major part of my life: my life as a fertile woman. I’m passing into the third and final chapter. The Crone years (if you don’t mind the term — I don’t).

My life and body are changing, moving toward another ending and beginning. And damn, just like they said, it happened so quickly.