Today I am feeling tired, very tired, but regardless of how I’m feeling there is a mountain of work to do and I need to push on through …..
Having worked through last weekend to prepare for the WDF new season launch in Jersey and Guernsey, I am now running to catch up planning the next event while tracking hurricane Matthew (my daughter is on her honeymoon in Florida), caring for her beloved but sick guinea pig, realising I need to buy food before my husband returns from working in Singapore, pulling my hair out over unfathomable Windows 10 and iPhone updates, while coping with a detox programme I decided to do after putting on weight over the summer!
Of course my list is nothing compared to many women’s daily life and work regimes, so many have more than full-time jobs, children, elderly parents, pets and households to care for as well as often punishing exercise routines to keep the “gym toned arms”. (I’ve long given up on that one!)
Some days I honestly still feel like I can do it all, take it in my stride, but at other times just the sight of a pile of cat sick on the carpet can make me despair. I really have no idea how much of these swings in energy level are due to my hormones? At times I consider myself well and truly through the menopause, then another round of hot flushes makes me remember what a long transition this can be. My choice was to embrace the process without HRT, but I’m not so sure I would have chosen this route if I’d still been in a full-time corporate career. I still remember with huge embarrassment arriving at a client meeting having walked into town then having a hot flush to end all hot flushes, so bad I had to borrow his handkerchief while my hair and top dripped with sweat.
So here I am sharing online stuff I wouldn’t normally. Why not? Because I think I’ve spent my entire career pretending I am super human and not subject to hormonal swings. Being called “hormonal” is top of a list of 20 expression women would like banned and rightly so, but I believe the whole subject of hormones in the workplace has been taboo for far too long. This is why at WDF we want to lift the lid and have an open discussion on this subject as part of The Fertility Time-Clock.
We will also be looking at the whole issue of age related fertility, IVF and the trend to delay motherhood to fit in with careers. Do join us in this much needed conversation.