the menstrual legacy: first blood

I still remember my first period: March 25-26, 1977. My diary showed a little diagram of the uterus and ovaries with tear-drop-shaped blood coming out of it. That was the first time I felt like I was really female and really growing up. I felt like I'd become a full-blooded woman.

It didn't take long to learn that my periods were worse than what the other girls my age were experiencing.. They were heavy, I had cramping, and my mood swings made me a poster child for PMS. This just got worse after having children and slouching into middle age. Right before my ablation, the flow and the cramping caused pain so bad I nearly passed out while driving, teaching, pushing my cart through the grocery store, and even just sitting on the couch. My mother had horrible periods--an extremely heavy flow, clots whose size was compared to various citrus fruits, the necessity of using multiple pads and tampons, etc. In fact, my mother had worse periods than any woman I ever knew--until I met my mother-in-law, who couldn't even use tampons due to a higher likelihood of infection related to rheumatic fever during her teen years. These two women made my periods look like a walk in the park.

Imagine my poor daughter trying to escape the menstrual legacy coming down from both sides of her gene pool. I'd often wondered how I would handle my daughter's first period. On the Cosby Show, Rudy's first period was celebrated by a mother-daughter "Woman's Day." Should I celebrate with her? Would it be something she wanted to celebrate? Would she even want to acknowledge it to me? The only thing I ever wanted to talk to my mom about with my periods at that age was to tell her that I needed more "stuff" from the grocery store. I must say that it's been interesting being the mother of a menstruating daughter, especially since I haven't bled in a year and half.

First Blood, Part 1
R (my daughter) had her first blood about two years ago. This consisted of her seeing a spot of blood on her underwear, yelling to me to come to the bathroom right away, and announcing, "I have my punctuation." About three more times over the following year, this was the pattern. Her hormones and emotions were definitely have regular periods, but she spotted only occasionally for over a year. Last summer, she had none at all.

First Blood, Part 2
Last year, on the Friday of the first week of school, R came home and announced: "I became a woman today--twice!" Huh? Apparently, she had blood on her underwear two different times at school. As we were talking, her twin brother (B) walked into the room. R said, "You'll probably want to leave the room because we're talking about woman things. I became a woman today." B said, "What, you had a bat mitzvah?" (He's wanted to convert to Judaism ever since we attended a friend's son's bar mitzvah and saw what a great party and cool presents were to be had. This was clearly on his mind, as he was approaching his 13th birthday.)

R thought she'd gotten her period twice, since she'd found blood twice. I had to sit her down and explain to her that a period wasn't something that just occasionally punctuated her underwear, that it was like a slow faucet that dripped over several days and nights. Once her body figured out what it was doing, it would be a more steady flow. Her face fell. It was like I'd told her there was no Santa.

First Blood, Part 3
By November, her periods were floods, not punctuation. She would have only 3 weeks between, and the flow was heavy. We were staying at her uncle's farm overnight, and I went in to wake her up. She was standing with a blanket wrapped around her. She opened the blanket and was covered in blood from boobs to knees. My poor baby! Later that day, she looked at the baby I was holding and said, "You know I could make one of those, right?"

First Blood, Part 4
Ever since November, I've been encouraging her to use tampons, knowing that they would help mitigate some of the embarrassing leaking onto clothes that she'd experienced. I bought her tampons, but she couldn't figure out exactly where they went. I bought her a mirror and told her to get to know her body. She finally figured out the location but couldn't figure out the insertion method--and once she did, it pinched. So, following my sister-in-law's advice, I got some with plastic applicators. These worked better. After months and boxes of practice, she'd finally gotten one in. She was ready for showtime.

Showtime came last week. In the middle of the lake at the family campout, we were lying on a raft together when she announced, "I just felt something in my va-jay-jay." She scooted to the edge of the raft and managed to get her hand in enough to check, and there was blood on it. Then began the hours and days of the Tampon Transition.

Day 1
"It's causing cramping."
"It hurts."
"It hurts but not when I lie down."
"It hurts but not when I sit."
"Look! I can walk!"
"I don't know why anyone uses these stupid
things."

Day 2
"Oh. Was I supposed to use a pad and a tampon overnight? Oops."

Day 3
"I just read the directions. I wasn't putting them in all the way. It's much better now."

Day 4 (the day of regular updates, every single time she went to the bathroom)
"Did you know that if you twist it just a bit at the end that it's easier to get the applicator out?"
"Gross. I saw my pee coming off the end of the string."
"The string got stuck in the crack thing. I had to dig it out."
At the end of the day, I got a daily summary that consisted of a recap of all earlier updates and a a confirmation that she planned to use tampons again in the future. (This part was delivered while I was lying in bed next to my husband, who we both thought was asleep. We
discovered we were wrong when my husband suddenly covered his ears and started
singing the "la-la-la" song.)



So far, this is proving to be an interesting adventure. She says she doesn't like to talk about this stuff with me--but she talks to me, anyway. We never did celebrate a "Woman's Day" to honor her first period. However, we have a monthly tradition. On the first day of her period every month, I go to the store and buy chocolate. The boys get some chocolate, too (B says, "because we have to put up with her"), but she gets the good stuff. It's a celebration of Woman's Day every month.