I moved to New York, stopped sleeping, gained weight, and spent months not understanding why. Nobody told me it was perimenopause. This is what that journey looked like from the inside.
I can't remember exactly how everything started, because when you move to a new place, a new city, there is so much happening at once that it's really hard to tune in to yourself and notice the changes in your body. But I'll try to remember.
February
We moved to New York in February 2023, first into a nice furnished temporary place in Downtown Brooklyn. I still remember the night we arrived and how everything smelt and felt. The lights, the air, the noise. Oh yes, mostly the noise. It was a constant underground hum in my ears, sirens from police cars, and people talking or shouting. Overstimulating and chaotic in a way I hadn't expected.
I remember standing in front of the building, quietly doubting the decision we had made. We had moved to New York without ever visiting first. It was cold. A harsh wind was cutting through everything. We stepped out of the Uber and stood there with our five suitcases in front of this tall building, all of us feeling like tiny little ants. We loaded everything onto one of those fancy golden luggage carts and made our way up to the 33rd floor (the highest floor I had ever lived on before was the 3rd).
The view was absolutely stunning. I stood there, mouth wide open, watching the Manhattan skyline stretch out in front of me. I was exhausted after a long flight, but it felt so good, like I was looking directly at this new chapter of our lives. Manhattan was at my feet. Outside my kitchen window. Could anything go wrong? Possibly not.
The 3am apartment hunt
It took us (mostly me) some time to figure everything out. Getting the kids into new schools, finding grocery stores, navigating the subway, and all the small things that hold daily life together. I was in a good mood. The kids were adjusting quickly. We got used to the noise and the constant busyness.
But I started to realize that I wasn't sleeping the way I used to. I kept telling myself it was the move, the new and busy city we were now living in (they say New York never sleeps, and this is true). It would take time to adjust. Everything would settle down. But Stephanie (I) was sleepless in New York and the lack of sleep did not feel good at all.
In between those sleepless nights, I was also searching for a new apartment. The furnished place we were in was temporary, and we urgently needed something bigger. Our cats had arrived a week after us, and five people and two grumpy cats in a two-bedroom apartment were... a lot. So I started scrolling through StreetEasy at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, lying in bed staring at the skyline, looking at apartments we could rent. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes more.
I kept wondering: is this still the excitement keeping me awake? Or is it something else? Why do I always wake up when the whole city is finally a little quiet?
I woke up exhausted every morning. Even the strongest coffee couldn't shake the fog. Weeks passed. We eventually found a beautiful brownstone apartment in Brooklyn and moved in, but I still wasn't sleeping. In fact, as we sorted out our new life, it was getting worse.
And then there was something else.
Over the past few months, I had gained weight. At first I thought it was the American portion sizes. Everything in the US is bigger; even the coffee cups are enormous compared to Europe. But the scale kept going up. And because I wasn't sleeping, I was craving sugar constantly. Cinnamon rolls at 10am. Fluffy pancakes on a Tuesday. A caramel latte so sweet it barely tasted like coffee. New York is not the place to be when your body is asking for all of that. You get it all, and it tastes delicious until you dare to step on the scale the next day (so in the beginning, I simply skipped that part 😉).
I was tired, heavier than I wanted to be, and waking up in the middle of the night for reasons I couldn't explain. I was blaming everything around me: the move, the city, the adjustment.
It was not just the move
I went to see an OB-GYN. And (I feel a tiny bit weird to admit this) I did not ask anyone for a recommendation. I just looked up a doctor in the city who accepted my insurance. It had to be Midtown, because I was living (!) in New York and I wanted the full "I am going to see my gynecologist in Manhattan" kind of vibe. Starbucks order already placed on the app, walking briskly and unbothered through the streets like everyone else. The office was close to Bryant Park. I stepped out of Grand Central Station and made my way to one of those tall Midtown buildings, coffee in hand.
The visit was quite unspectacular. I explained my situation, mentioned everything, we did some bloodwork, but the results were (ha!) normal. Nothing to see here. Please move on with your life as usual. Do some yoga, and all would be good.
But I felt like a 45-year-old woman trapped in the body of a 95-year-old. I had joint pain, I wasn't sleeping, I was grumpy as hell, and I was gaining weight. I started googling. I started talking to other women I met. And after a while, after a lot of research, the word perimenopause came to me like an epiphany. It all made sense. All of my symptoms and observations finally had an explanation. I had never thought about this before. In my mind, I was too young for this phase of life.
Eventually I found a doctor who listened and actually helped me. But that is a story for another post.
That was the moment everything shifted. Not because anything got easier overnight. But because I stopped blaming myself.
And somewhere between the sleepless nights and the Google searches, my yoga classes, and everyday life, an idea started forming. A quiet, stubborn little idea: What if there was a place that actually had answers? But that is a story for another post.