Why does nobody tell women what menopause is actually like?

This week on Moms Unhinged, Andrea Marie sits down live with Dr. Savita Ginde from Boulder Valley Health Center to talk about menopause symptoms, mom chaos, and why women were made to feel “crazy” during this stage of life for way too long.

They also get into itchy ears (apparently that’s a symptom now), parenting twin boys, airport disaster, and the upcoming Coming in Hot comedy fundraiser event benefiting Boulder Valley Health Center.

Get your tickets to the Coming in Hot comedy fundraiser event - https://bouldervalleyhealth.org/coming-in-hot-event/

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If it is menopause, let's address it.

I mean, I think that's been left out of healthcare for a long time.

Yeah.

Women were often looked at as going crazy or all kinds of things happened,

even in the workplace, people not being tolerant to the different symptoms

that people had, and that's not okay.

Yeah.

It happens to every woman.

We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show.

Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood,

midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and

other things that irritate us.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Moms Unhinged podcast, and

I am your host, Andrea Marie.

I'm so excited today to be joined by the amazing Dr. Savita Ginde.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

And you guys, she is amazing.

She is the CEO and Chief Medical Officer of the Boulder Valley Health Center.

She has done a TED Talk.

She's an author.

She's had so many accomplishments, I think it would take the half hour

to just list them all, but more importantly, probably one of her hardest

roles, she's the mother of twins.

Yes, so welcome again, and thank you so much for taking time out

of your busy schedule to be here.

Of course, it's great.

Thank you.

Yeah.

We just wanted to talk today, we've got an exciting show coming up together

that we're gonna talk about a little bit later, but we're also gonna talk

about like, just some of the roles of Boulder Valley Health Center.

Tell us a little bit about what you do there and how you help women.

Yeah.

So we exist as a reproductive

and sexual health center, providing abortion care and education,

including a spectrum of services.

And we serve all people, men, women, anyone across the gender spectrum.

And especially those who might have difficulty in accessing healthcare.

Yeah.

So what does that mean?

I mean, it means that we see patients who have insurance, who don't have insurance.

We wanna make sure that everybody has access to high-quality care.

Yeah.

'Cause that's important.

It's so important.

So important, especially, you know, as mothers, as women, it's

just, we've got a lot going on.

Yes.

I mean.

It's the daily juggle.

It is.

And I call it Jenga.

One little thing comes out of the day, and the whole thing falls.

Exactly, exactly.

I think that's my insides, too.

So tell us a little bit more about what you do there.

I'm curious, like, what does your daily life look like there?

How do you help and serve in your role?

Yeah.

I mean, we're mainly, as an organization, we're a health center, so we are mostly

seeing patients every day, either in the reproductive health or the sexual arena.

For myself, I'm either in meetings all day or I'm seeing patients.

Yeah.

Or I'm trying to do both.

Yeah.

Yeah ... or we're providing education, meeting with community, organizations that

support our work, that we refer to, that refer to us, and just making sure that

all of our patients and all the people that come to us get their needs met.

Either directly from us or through a community partner.

Yeah.

That's so great.

I love that.

I love that, and so important.

And

I'm gonna just tease a little bit about the show.

Ooh, yeah.

We're gonna be talking about

menopause in the show, which I think I'm having a hot flash right now.

Just as to demo.

Yes.

But tell us what, how you help women, in menopause and how you serve there, and

what kind of the important things are for women who are going through that.

Sure.

I mean, I think one of the most important things with the menopause

transition is that it can start early, in the late 30s even for some.

And this is just organically, sort of naturally, outside of any

type of surgery or anything that might happen at a different age.

But just to normalize the experience, it can come with a spectrum

of different symptoms and, you know, you can have hot flashes.

Yeah.

It could be caused by menopause, perimenopause.

It could be caused by other issues.

So it's really important that any time you have symptoms,

you go and get it checked out.

Make sure it's not your thyroid, make sure it's not something else.

And if it is menopause, let's address it.

I mean, I think that's been left out of healthcare for a long time.

Yeah.

Women were often looked at as going crazy or all kinds of things happened,

even in the workplace, people not being tolerant to the different symptoms

that people had, and that's not okay.

Yeah.

It happens to every woman, a lot of people were meant to feel very isolated

with the symptoms they were having.

Mm-hmm.

And I've noticed as people start to go through the menopause transition,

and especially when they're closer to menopause, there's a need.

There's an internal need that develops about seeking connection with others.

Yeah.

I think that, to me, really ties into normalizing the menopause experience.

It happens to anyone who has a uterus and ovaries.

Yeah.

And we can all laugh through it, which is super important.

But also get some medication and the things that we might individually

need to help us through that to make sure that we're maintaining the

quality of life that we all want.

Right.

Exactly, it just can affect everything.

Yes.

It can really just cascade into, yeah, sleep issues.

I didn't even know that itchy ears I was like, itchy ears?

What?

That's wild.

But yeah, there's so many things and it's funny because I did kinda think

I was through menopause, but then there's no real like, it's such a.

It never ends.

It really feels that way.

I'm like, just last week I was like, "Oh, are we doing this

again? We doing this again?"

It's like kids.

They never go away.

I know.

I had no idea, no one warns us.

And certainly our, you know, my mom never mentioned it.

She never mentioned any.

I never knew anything about it.

And so I think the nice thing about being in today's world is that we

are a little bit more open about it.

We're hearing more about it, and so that's just always a good.

And Boulder Valley Health Center is here to help any person who is having

symptoms that needs to be evaluated and to get people on the right medications.

Yeah.

And that's the other thing.

I am a Menopause Society certified provider, which means that we look

at the latest research and guidelines and really make sure that people

are getting the medications they need without some of this, sometimes

there's overkill on testing.

Yeah.

Or people get medications that they don't really need.

And so we really try to make sure that people are getting their needs met,

again, either through us, with more of the commonplace medications, but if someone

needs services beyond what we do, we refer people out to our community providers.

Yeah.

That's great.

That's great, it's just takes a village.

Yeah, it does.

Everything takes a village.

It really does, it really does.

Speaking of taking a village, I wanna dive into more your experience raising twins.

I'm just so curious.

Now, tell us a little bit about your kids and how old are they?

They are 11.

Uh huh.

They will be 12 in a couple months.

Yeah, and boys.

Two boys.

Yes.

Yeah, so they're crazy.

I know.

I have boys, too.

They are.

Yes.

They're nuts.

They're nuts.

And I think my husband is one of four boys, so when we had boys

he was like, "Yeah, I'm used to this." I came from a line of girls.

Oh.

And so I was sort of like, "What is this?"

Right.

"What am I doing?"

Right.

"What is this?"

I know.

I had a sister, and then when I had boys, I was like, "I don't know what to do."

Yeah.

"What am I doing with this?"

Oh man, that's amazing.

So they're 11.

What are kinda some of the crazy things they're doing right now?

Oh, right now?

Yeah well, they can't keep their hands off of each other for some reason.

They're like tackling, wrestling, everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like a love-hate.

Sometimes they're playing, then they get mad.

They stomp off, and they sort of remarkably come

back together very quickly.

Yeah, yeah.

It's boomerang love.

Yeah.

And have they been... were they close when they were young

too, when they were little?

Yeah.

They've been close all along.

Yeah.

And are they identical or fraternal?

They're fraternal.

Okay.

So one looks like me, one looks like my husband.

Okay.

The

genes have been divided very evenly there.

Do they behave that way too?

Are they like little temperaments?

Actually, not so much.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cause I have, one of my boys is like me, one is more like my ex-husband,

so it's just always interesting.

What has been the most challenging thing with raising twins?

Raising twins when they were young across COVID.

That in itself was its challenge.

Yeah.

But I think one of the most challenging things is making sure that they can...

They have this unbreakable bond.

I can tell you that we went through, you become a new parent and you go

through all these parenting classes.

Yeah.

And then we'd go, and I'm like, "Why am I here?"

Because what they would say was, "But you're different, 'cause when

you have twins, it's different. It doesn't follow these norms." Oh.

So I was like, "Why am I here?" Yeah.

"I don't have time for this."

Yeah.

You don't get a lot of guidance on it.

Right.

It's about helping them develop independent personalities, but they're

also bonded in a way that's different.

Yeah.

And of course, across COVID it was unique because every time they'd have a

class, you know, sometimes the classes would start up across COVID, so they'd

put them together 'cause they're like, "Well, you're already with each other

and do everything else, so you can spar with each other in jujitsu or whatever."

They're always together.

It doesn't give them time to develop independently.

Right.

And so it was a little bit of struggle even with school when we start, you

know, when they started in grade school of saying, "I wanna make sure

they're at least in different classes."

Yeah.

And getting a school district to allow that.

But we've navigated fine.

Right, right.

Yeah.

I didn't even think about that, that everyone just kind of lumps

them together, but they need a little alone time, don't we?

Yeah, we all need a little alone time.

And I'll tell you the biggest challenge, and no one knows this until

you're getting on a plane, but you can only have one lap child per row.

So when we would travel, my husband would be sitting behind us with the second lap

child, and there were, like, three people, the one in our row and the two in his

row that were probably not very happy.

Oh.

We would pass kids back and forth sometimes, 'cause you know they get bored.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I didn't even know that.

One lap child.

Cause there's only four oxygen masks per row.

Oh, I see.

Interesting.

You ever know these things?

Yeah, it seems like, yeah, it'd be nicer if you could just annoy one person.

Yes, but we annoyed three.

Oh, man.

Wow.

Yeah, and I imagine, well, you know, I think it's interesting

having two the same age too.

Like, usually you've got one, if you've got two children, maybe one is a little

bit more independent, one is, you know, needing a little more attention, and

you've got both doing the same thing.

I have a cohort.

I always say, I don't know what I would do if I had a kid who was, like, potty

training and the other one's in diapers.

I don't know.

I had a cohort that moved through every stage.

Yeah.

Together.

Yeah, that's interesting too.

Maybe you're batching it.

Batch flow.

Oh my gosh.

I always like to ask

about an unhinged moment you had.

And I'm sure there's probably

many.

There's many.

I know.

So feel free to add more, but I always like to, 'cause, I mean, the

thing is about parenting, we're just all making it up as we go, right?

We don't know what we're doing.

And so I think by sharing these unhinged moments, we are,

like, feeling a little more.

Yeah.

Together.

Let me see.

Which ones?

Where do you want me to start?

I mean, I can tell you right after they were born.

They were born early.

Okay.

30, almost 34 weeks.

So we were in the NICU.

Uh-huh.

For about a month.

Yeah.

And after I got, you know, we were discharged.

And we would go back to the NICU every day, and the front desk lady

obviously knew us 'cause we were coming back every day, but she would

tell us, "Go and color these..."

I don't know.

She wanted us to do something about who they were and describe them.

And I was like, "Lady, they're four days old. Like, how much...

I'm getting to know them."

Oh my gosh.

"I barely know." So, like the 10th time she asked me, I was literally like,

"Listen." My husband was like, "Oh, God." I was like, "This just isn't gonna happen.

Like, we're not doing this."

And she was, like, mortified looking at me, and I was like, "Yeah, it's not

happening. I'm not coloring this. We're not putting it on the walls." Yeah.

"They can't even read." Yeah like, there's no point to it.

So that was a modified Moms Unhinged moment.

And then there was a second time.

Again, this, for some reason, this always involves my husband.

But we were at the airport, double tandem stroller.

So long stroller.

We're in security, and the guy calls him across, and he goes.

So now I'm stuck there on the other side with two kids.

Not even toddlers, so they couldn't stand up.

Oh, and a stroller.

And the security guy on top of that looks at me and says, "Can

you fold that and walk it through this door and take it to this other

place?" And I just looked at him.

I did it, and then I walked through, and I can't remember, you have

to, like, pass the kids through.

And then I gave him a piece of my mind, and my husband turns to me and he's like,

"Well, we're gonna miss our flight now."

Oh.

'Cause the TSA agent said, "I'm gonna go get a supervisor." And I

was like, "Oh, you're gonna supervise me now?" So I let him have it.

Oh my gosh.

And then my husband was like, "Oh, God."

And then I just looked at him and I said, "Look, you disrespected

me, so I disrespected you back."

Yeah.

"And now it's time to just walk on."

And so he just looked at me and he was like, "okay."

So yeah, we've had a couple different things where I was

like, "I'm not doing this."

I know.

That's

gotta be, travel, I mean, travel's stressful with children, right?

Yeah.

I mean, but that is added stress, just trying to get them through TSA.

No one helped me.

I could say that in line.

And now I feel like people are a little bit more helpful.

Yeah.

But I had to set one kid down in the tray for a second to get the, it was just.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's terrible.

That is terrible.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

we've had some crazy travel stories too, where just, you know,

they're throwing up everywhere.

Travel is crazy.

Yeah.

I will tell you more recently, you know, my kid, I do pickup sometimes,

and I always say, those 15 minutes in the car to and from school are the most

enlightening bonding times you can have.

And one of my kiddos was like, "Today we talked about sex and sexting."

And I was like, "Ugh, really?" Of course, caught me off guard.

I'm not prepared for these conversations.

Yeah.

Yeah, even though I talk about this almost every day at work.

Not necessarily about sexting.

No.

But sexually related conversations, but not with my kids.

Yeah.

So it always catches me off guard.

Yeah.

And I said, "Okay. Well, let me just tell you, no one ever, never

ever needs to see a picture of your penis." I just made it clear.

'Cause I always have this vision in my head that whatever I say will stick,

and then when they're actually, like, thinking about doing something, they'll

be like, "Oh, I can hear my mom's voice."

And then that'll just, like, dampen the desire.

So I've drilled it into their head.

No one ever needs to see a picture of your penis, I'm just gonna tell you now.

In your future when you're 35.

Ever.

Yeah.

It gets immortalized in wherever these archives are of texts.

No one ever needs to see it.

So I'm hoping you won't see a dick pic from any of my kids.

No.

I feel like that should just be a thing.

Why can't we?

Let's just start, let's just, you know, put it on a big billboard.

Yeah.

For many.

No one ever needs to see that.

Yeah, no.

Yeah.

Well, I'm gonna share a little joke with you.

So I've never personally gotten a dick pic.

Okay, but I was married for 20 years.

So back in my day, a guy would've had to take several pictures on his camera.

Oh, gosh.

Drop the film off at Walgreens.

Get the FBI after

You wait three to five business days.

So yeah, no, but it is a huge thing now, and now in the world of AI, oh

my gosh, I don't... your kids being younger, that's a whole different

thing I didn't have to deal with.

My kids are now launched, so how do you deal with some of those conversations?

We keep it real.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, we talk about it.

boundaries.

I actually think they're on, in terms of the bell curve of when everything

launched, and I always say anytime there's something new, it's the internet,

it's social media, whatever it is.

You know, everyone goes to one extreme, and then we slowly kinda get back to

the middle balanced place we should be.

I think I'm lucky in that way, that my kids are a little bit younger, and

right now all the... we see lots of conversations happening at a federal

level and local level about where there has to be boundaries, age limits.

Roblox, Minecraft.

All the anxiety and depression that can come out of screen

addiction, all of those things.

We're at the other end of it, so we can put a little bit of those

boundaries in place for our kids.

Yeah.

I think some of the people who are a little bit older graduating

now maybe didn't have those.

Yeah, and so it's a completely different challenge.

Yeah.

To build good habits.

Yeah, for sure.

It's just parenting, I think, just gets harder and harder.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Tried to be strategic.

Like, we've only introduced our kids to dark chocolate, 'cause

I'm like, "There's no reason for them to have regular chocolate."

Yeah.

We've talked to them from the very beginning about like,

"You don't need your phone."

We don't carry our phones with us everywhere and do

everything to sort of model that.

Right.

So I think it's really important what you model.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and what they're used to.

Right.

We've tried to at least be cognizant of that.

Doesn't help that they go to school and spend most of their hours with people

who don't have the same boundaries.

Yeah.

That's very true.

That's very true.

Just thinking about your kids and friends, how does that work with twins?

I know that can be sometimes a challenge with friendships and having twins.

It's not much of a challenge.

They're very different, but they get along, and they are respectful

of each other's differences.

Okay.

But they have common friends.

They're in a smaller school.

Uh-huh.

And so it's actually a great school where they're all really close

and friendly with each other.

Yeah.

And they have always learned to recognize that differences in individual

personalities or behaviors, are all okay.

Yeah.

We don't all have to fit a mold, and so they're very forgiving.

Yeah.

In a way that sometimes I'm like, "Wow, I learn from them all the time."

I know.

Sometimes they do teach us lessons.

It's like, "Well, who made you so wise?" You know?

Yeah.

That's great.

And it's more the fact that they're not jaded quite.

Yeah.

They still have hope.

Yes, they still have hope.

Oh, wow.

That's awesome.

Let's pivot and get a little bit, and talk a little bit about our event coming up.

'Cause I am so excited about it.

It's so fun.

We're gonna have such a good time.

It is called Coming in Hot.

It's gonna be great.

Yeah.

And so tell us a little bit about the event and what you guys are, how you're

putting that together, and then we'll talk about our partnership in there too.

Yeah.

So this is our signature event for 2026.

It's a comedy event 'cause we all think that if there's any better time than

now, we all need to laugh a little bit.

Yes.

And it brings together, again, a good intersection of everything that we stand

for in terms of making sure people have access to care, and bringing in this,

again, this very important notion that menopausal symptoms need to be normalized.

Bringing people together to connect in community around this and also

showcasing all the great work that we do at Boulder Valley Health Center

and raising some money to support us.

We are a nonprofit but we've been around for 53 years.

So we're also in menopause as an organization.

That's great, that's great.

And it's going to be at the Dairy Arts Center.

July 9th.

Thank you.

Wednesday, July 9th.

July 9th.

Sorry, Thursday, july 9th.

Thursday, July 9th.

And we'll have the link here in the show notes for people to get tickets.

But we're partnering to help get the word out about this event, to get the word

out about the amazing things that Boulder Valley Health Center does in the world of

women's health and menopause specifically.

And we have a great lineup.

We have Nancy Norton as our special headliner.

Yay.

She is amazing.

She is the first woman to win the Boston Comedy Festival.

She won the Seattle Comedy Festival, and I like to say, just to keep her humble,

she came in third in South Dakota.

And then we have Janae Burris on the lineup as well as our feature,

and she is absolutely incredible.

She's opened for people like Josh Blue, Beth Stelling, Gary Gulman.

She's a pro at the, at Comedy Works.

And then I will be your MC, host for the comedy part of it,

and, founder of Moms Unhinged.

It's gonna be a great, fun night.

There's a special meet and greet.

Mm-hmm.

Meet and greet beforehand.

We've got VIP special tickets.

You can become a sponsor.

All kinds of amazing things with that.

It's a great date night.

It is a great date night.

It is a great date night.

Let's talk, again, circle back to menopause.

And talk about like what people, what women especially can do to help

further their own health around this.

Well, I think the first thing is to make a list of all of the

symptoms that you have questions.

Sometimes people just need validation that what they're experiencing is normal.

Yeah.

And so just being able to talk to a healthcare provider about what you're

experiencing, is super important, and having that list ahead of time, 'cause

I have patients who sometimes get tongue-tied, and all of a sudden like "I

had a list and I can't remember." I know.

So y'all have phones.

Yeah.

Put it in your phone.

Yeah.

And the other thing is, you know, I oftentimes tell my patients, "You have

to think of yourself going back to the kids." For kids, we're so adamant

about setting schedules for them.

Uh huh.

And then as we get older, that starts to unravel, and no we're eating till we go

to bed, and we have our phones till we fall asleep, and we go to bed whenever.

Right.

And so we'd never allow our kids to do that.

More importantly, we can't do that to ourselves.

Yeah.

We have to come up with routines in a similar way.

Might not be going to bed at 6:00 like your kids do.

You might be starting that wind down at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 o'clock.

But having a schedule is super important.

Yeah.

Both for eating and sleeping.

I think it gets more important as you make that menopause transition, just to

try to prevent some of those things that happen like you mentioned with sleep.

Yeah.

Sleep deprivation or not getting enough sleep, I mean, it makes me cranky.

I know.

And then I can have more unhinged moments.

I know.

Definitely, it's wild that it is happening at this time where you

might still be dealing with your kids.

Yeah.

I mean, my kids are still young.

Right.

And you're going through this yourself.

It's such a challenge as women to try and balance it all.

Yeah.

But you deserve to have all those things addressed, and if you need

supplementation with estrogen or progesterone, the hormones that

help keep everything even keel.

Mm-hmm.

That's where you come and start having that conversation about what you might

need for, just to make sure your quality of life is where you want it to be.

Right.

Exactly.

It is so important.

We just urge any women in the Boulder area to go to Boulder Valley Health Center.

Yeah, come on in.

Connect there for sure.

And if you're listening from somewhere else, please make sure you're

taking care of your own health and putting that as a priority, 'cause

that is so important because we have to keep our own cup filled.

In order to serve our family and ourselves and the world.

And it's all intertwined.

Your physical health can impact, like sleep.

If you're not getting enough sleep, not only can it make you cranky,

you can have disordered eating.

Mm. Maybe you're not eating the foods, then you're gaining weight.

Right.

It can also then tie into your mental health.

Maybe you're depressed.

You're not feeling as good.

Yeah.

I mean, it all just becomes a big snowball.

Yeah, that is.

It is such a challenge.

So great.

This has been just so much fun.

Why don't you tell people where they can find out more about Boulder Valley Health.

Yeah.

Make sure know where

people can get tickets for sure.

Yes.

You can access everything about Boulder Valley Health Center.

There's even a scheduling if you wanna schedule an appointment with

us, a scheduling link all on our website, bouldervalleyhealth.org,

bouldervalleyhealth.org.

You will also see a pop-up and a drop down there where you can

find information about our events.

So that will include Coming in Hot.

Yeah.

Al lot of details there, the ability to buy tickets.

We hope to see all of you there.

It's gonna be an amazing night.

Yeah.

But also we'd love to see you beyond that or before that for an appointment.

Get anyone's needs met, not only around menopause care, but also around

birth control or any of, anything else that you might have questions about.

It's all important.

Yeah, it really truly is.

Well, Dr. Sevita, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, being one

of our first in, in-person interviews.

This is so fun and thanks to our crew behind the scenes,

making sure we look good.

Stacy, Kelsey, thank you all.

Yes.

And thanks everyone.

Make sure you check out the show notes and we'll see you on July 9th

at the Dairy Center for Coming in Hot.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on

the socials to get more comedy clips.