The deeply inconvenient medical proof that I might actually be middle-aged.
We have officially entered the era of knowing absolutely everything about our bodies, whether we want to or not. Everything is now tracked, measured, monitored, and analyzed. Our sleep, steps, heart rates, glucose, recovery scores, and readiness for whatever we are supposed to be ready for.
I would estimate that I participate in less than 15% of this overzealous obsession with our health, which is actually shocking given how anxious I am.
I mean, I don't even wear a heart rate monitor at Orangetheory. And the entire premise of Orangetheory is that you're supposed to spend a certain amount of time "in the orange," which I understand corresponds to some percentage of your maximum heart rate. I've been going to Orangetheory for 14 years and have never once worn the monitor. Thousands of classes later and not a single splat point to show for it (IYKYK). I know. It makes no sense. I just kinda don't want to know.
But last year, I was targeted by an ad for Function Health, which offers comprehensive blood testing across more than 100 biomarkers. Unlike the usual annual physical, where your doctor checks a handful of things and sends you on your way, Function promises a much more detailed picture of what's happening inside your body.
Truth be told, what probably pulled me in more than anything was that Function calculates your biological age, an estimate of how old your body is based on certain biomarkers. Call it vanity, call it curiosity, but I was dying to know. And when my results came back telling me that my 43-year-old body was actually...
28.1, BABY!!! I realized just how brilliant a marketing strategy this was. Tell a middle-aged woman she's biologically 15 years younger than her driver's license says, and you've got a customer for life!!!
Anyway, I completed my two rounds of testing last year, fully convinced that my hormone panel was going to reveal I was entering perimenopause. I had no symptoms. My periods were regular and nothing particularly interesting was happening. But wasn't this the age when everything was supposed to start falling apart?
As I've shared before, I have had a somewhat complicated relationship with accepting that I am, in fact, middle-aged. And I think some part of me was hoping that the bloodwork would provide scientific evidence that I was the exception to the rule.
And last year's results seemed to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear.
My AMH, or anti-Müllerian hormone, which is used as an indicator of ovarian reserve, looked reassuring. My estradiol, a form of estrogen produced primarily by the ovaries, looked perfectly respectable. My follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which helps regulate the menstrual cycle and stimulate the ovaries, wasn't raising any eyebrows.
In my completely unqualified interpretation, I was Fertile Myrtle. Which is particularly hilarious because I have absolutely no desire to have more children.
So I basked in the glory of my completely unearned reproductive excellence and went about my life until last night, when my first batch of this year's results arrived.
Apparently, in the 12 months since my last test, some shit has changed.
First up, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH): 6.8 last year. 20.4 this year.
FSH is basically your brain telling your ovaries to get to work, and higher levels can mean your ovaries aren't responding quite as enthusiastically as they used to. Mine had tripled.
Next, luteinizing hormone (LH): 3.1 last year. 8.8 this year.
LH helps trigger ovulation, and while mine it was still technically within the normal range, it had also almost tripled.
And finally, estradiol (estrogen): 208 last year. 63 this year.
Estrogen helps regulate everything from your menstrual cycle to bone health, and mine had dropped nearly 70% between tests. Both numbers can be perfectly normal depending on where you are in your cycle, but that didn't stop me from interpreting the drop as my ovaries quietly packing up their desks.
Now, before anyone diagnoses me through their phone, these hormones naturally fluctuate throughout the month, and a single blood test can't confirm perimenopause. But at 43, the possibility that things were starting to shift suddenly felt a lot less theoretical.
That said, my initial thought was that someone had mixed up my results. I know that's unlikely, but mistakes happen. Maybe somewhere out there, a 57-year-old woman was staring at my numbers wondering why her ovaries had suddenly staged a comeback.
This, not coincidentally, is the same statistical denial I practiced while dating in my 20s: if a guy didn’t text me back, the only logical explanation was that he had died.
My second thought was considerably less optimistic: Shit, menopause is coming for me. And then, unexpectedly, I felt sad.
Because while I know intellectually that aging is inevitable, I think I've been operating under the assumption that I could somehow kick this particular can down the road for a very long time.
Sure, I've found a few gray hairs, but for the most part, I don't feel middle-aged. I don't think I look particularly middle-aged. And until last night, I had the bloodwork of a 28.1-year-old to support my delusion.
What unsettled me wasn't necessarily the prospect of perimenopause itself. I know it's a normal biological transition. It was the realization that things might be changing inside my body without my permission. And that no amount of exercise, peptides, or Sculptra was going to stop time from doing what time does.
We spend so much time telling women to embrace aging, celebrate it, own it. And yes, of course. Getting older is a privilege. I'm grateful for my health, my children, my career, and the life I've built, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. But can we also admit that parts of it are weirdly sad?
That you can be grateful for getting older and still mourn the passing of a version of yourself? That you can believe wholeheartedly that a woman's value has absolutely nothing to do with her fertility and still feel strangely emotional when your own reproductive hormones start behaving differently?
For now, I'm going to wait for the rest of my results, talk to Dr. Gillian, and resist the urge to declare my ovaries officially retired based on one round of bloodwork.
And I'll probably keep going to Orangetheory without a heart rate monitor. Because apparently, there are still some things I'd rather not know.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Sara Brooks
Career brand-builder, mom of two, 43 years old, and a serial collector of good people. The best thing about midlife? I finally know how to dress for my body - and I unapologetically leave parties early.
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