I just turned 45 last month, have always had regular periods. Lately they've gotten very heavy the first day or 2, last only 3 maybe 4 days instead of 5. I've never missed one, though. My last period was somewhere 9/28-9/30, b/c I remember I bought more pads 9/28 thinking I only had enough in the house for 1 day, but I don't remember when exactly it started. It's now 11/4 and I am definitely late, but am too afraid to get an HPT - maybe wait a couple more days? We didn't use BC on 10/20, don't remember when we did it before that - sometime the first week of Oct. My sex drive has been decreasing for 15 years, really low over the past 2 years as we've gone through stress of building a house and moving 100 miles, w/o selling our old house until we had an offer the day before the move. Through all that I was regular, though. I haven't had hot flashes but I have had flushed cheeks, and get hot/sweaty at night (with DH under the covers) even if I was freezing when I went to bed. Often (before we put flannel sheets on a week ago) I would wake up sweating and kick the covers off, only to be freezing with just a sheet on. My mom didn't have her last period til she was 54, so I thought I had another 5 years or so. Do you think this could be the start of "the change"?