In software development, the inertia/resistance involved in starting to create a new feature usually manifests itself in

I’ve been providing menopause education for several years. I occasionally feel unqualified to teach a health topic I’m not experiencing myself. It was the same with childbirth education. I’d been told years ago by friends and colleagues I’d make an excellent childbirth educator, but I just felt I needed to have a baby first. If the same logic is true, I can only imagine what my parents thought when I started teaching sex education.

I somehow had convinced myself I was pregnant. My husband had a vasectomy and I was nearly 45, but it could happen, right? I’m a women’s clinical health educator for goodness sake, I know how this works. My logical brain knew this was perimenopause. Duh! But my crazy out of control anxiety brain that was keeping me up every damn night thought perhaps I was pregnant.

I started getting irregular periods and mood swings, and I kept thinking “here we go.” But I had only been dipping my toe into the perimenopause pool before. Now I had been body slammed into the deep end.

No period and breast pain were my pregnancy signals. I told my husband how I could be pregnant, and he just laughed. I was consumed with stress, until I broke down and bought a pregnancy test. Negative. I think a part of me wanted it to be positive. Not that I wanted to be pregnant and have another child. I am 100% at peace with not having any more kids, but it would be evidence I was still fertile and therefore young. I stared at that pregnancy test for a long time. Proof I felt that I was now “of a certain age.” I was entering a new phase of life. And unlike the previous phases of life, I was eager to be a part of (adolescence, young adulthood, parenthood…), this one felt different. A little sad.

An additional reason I sometimes questioned myself as a menopausal leader was the vast majority of the people in class were at least 5 to 10 years older than I was. However, these folks had oftentimes been dealing with the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause for many years, sometimes more than a decade. Once they become informed about what they could do to ease their symptoms, such as lifestyle changes, hormone replacement therapy, acupuncture and herbs to name a few, a common response shared was, “I wish I’d known this years ago.”

The OBGYN, who co-teaches the class with me, and I try our best to give class participants tools and tips or discuss medications to help alleviate their discomfort and give them hope it isn’t always going to be “this bad.” I felt a little bit like a fraud, like I had no business telling these people what to do, as I myself had not been suffering too. I’d try to show I was also one of them, in their club. I’d shake my head in agreement with someone talking about their vaginal dryness like I too felt their pain. But the one thing I was really suffering from was full-on dread.

Perimenopause refers to the years before your last period and the first year after it. During this time, estrogen and progesterone hormones decrease causing the time between periods to become goofy and unpredictable. Menstrual periods become shorter and lighter or longer and heavier. Symptoms during perimenopause include, but are not limited to, hot flashes, vaginal dryness, mood changes, anxiety, sleep problems, weight gain, urinary problems, difficulties with concentration, and hair loss. HUZZAH!

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s an elegant solution that a C developer would have to solve with, say, a visitor pattern. Categories are no longer unique to Objective-C. You also have this feature available in Swift. Because Swift has more normal syntax, it can be useful to show an example of a Swift class extension which is similar to categories:

While teaching a menopause class, I always experienced a sadness for the people attending. They are so desperate to find answers and solutions to their symptoms. Some of which you could see truly scared them. Hot flashes that embarrassed them at work or sometimes even made them vomit they were so intense. Painful sex or low libido that was causing problems in their relationship, as their partner didn’t understand, or did understand but both were really frustrated about it. Weight gain that made them feel undesirable and less than. It was all so…depressing.

I don’t know about you, but as a developer, all I want to do is develop. I don’t want to chase product owners, check UI copy/elements, rewrite acceptance criteria, keep asking the back-end team about the API, etc.

The biggest unknown about menopause, is when perimenopause begins. Perimenopause refers to the years of hormonal fluctuation leading up to menopause and for the majority of people the most difficult time around menopause. Menopause technically means the final menstrual period, which can be confirmed after 12 consecutive months without a period. Usually occurring between the ages of 45–55, with the average age being 51. However, perimenopause can start a decade earlier, meaning the majority of people who are going through perimenopause are often in their 40s. I find most people do not know this. Even some physicians, when asked about perimenopause, tell patients, “you’re too young.”

I am smart enough to know this is self-doubt talking and one does not need to have physically experienced something to become an expert on it. If anything, you might be better because you don’t bring in your own biases and personal crap. It really is good I finally figured this out, because otherwise, I should stop talking about vasectomies immediately.

Perimenopause had been right around the corner for me and I could hear it coming, like a Mack Truck. I was convinced however that I, a menopause “expert”, was prepared and informed and it definitely wasn’t going to be “that bad.”

I don’t know about you, but as a developer, all I want to do is develop. I don’t want to chase product owners, check UI copy/elements, rewrite acceptance criteria, keep asking the back-end team about the API, etc.

There are no blood or hormone tests to confirm perimenopause, and besides irregular periods and other perimenopause symptoms, there is no certain way to confirm you’ve entered into this stage. However I knew enough to understand this is what I was experiencing. An advantage I’m sadly finding I have over most individuals, and I’m making it my personal mission to get the word out, so more people understand what is happening to their bodies…and minds. To help folks understand the anxiety or sadness they are feeling, for example, may not just be a result of raising teenagers, taking care of our elders, or living through a global pandemic, it may in fact be more related to their body’s current chemistry.