I am 54 – a few months short of 55. That means I’ve been having a monhly period for about 42 or so years. That’s somewhere in the region of 500 periods. This means more than 500 months of at least one week of cramping, bloating, helter-skelter hormones, headaches and poor sleep. Oh yes, and the accompanying bleeding. Those 500 weeks make up about 10 years of my life. 10 years.

Of those 40 years of monthly periods, there were 3, maybe 4 years where I had value for the monthly ordeal that occurs for the singular purpose of procreation. In those few years where I was hoping to conceive there was also a lot of disappointment. When you’re keen to have a baby, the arrival of your period is a crushing blow. If I was trying for 4 years to conceive, that’s 48 periods. Each one arrived, bring with it fresh heartache and hopes crashing to the floor. Again!

Your baby dreams crumble, you have cramps, you feel like crap and you’re not wearing those white pants that you like that week.

I had one perfect little babylet, so there was definitely a euphoric month in there somewhere. The babylet is now almost 30. She is a rock solid human being who makes me proud every day. She lives on another continent and I miss her.

How do I cancel this monthly subscription

My interest in procreation has long waned – I’m 54 for goodness sake. But every month my body still says, “Look! I made this egg for you”. How do I cancel this monthly subscription?

But what lies ahead once I get out of this binding agreement? From what I understand, the menstrual hormone rollercoaster is easy compared to perimenopausal hormone roulette.

Perimenopause sounds a bit like the twilight zone. You may get your period, you may not. If it does arrives, its completely off schedule and all bets are off on how light or heavy it might be. There there are hot flashes, declining vision, brain fog, dry skin, hair loss, muscle loss, reduced bone density, weight gain and a whole slew of other challenges that present themselves. This can go one for 1 year, maybe 2 or as many as 5. Its a roll of the dice really. I’d like to know who the hell is rolling this dice anyway.

I’m not sure what’s worse – this ongoing monthly burden or what lies ahead.