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Girl Wise

I watched a brief video of my 3 month old granddaughter this evening.

She’s precious – oh, so precious.

And, she’s girl – all girl. From the top of her red head, to her hiccupy giggle, to her tiny toes, this baby is girl.

100% girl.

I feel such emotion for this child…this grandchild of mine.

For, I am girl, too.

I hope her dad never tells her she can’t do something because she is girl. And, I hope he never says a negative word about menstruation in her presence, especially about her own.

it’s easier to speak with those I don’t know or can’t see (via tweets, emails, phone calls) about issues dear to the heart than it is to find words and opportunity to speak and address important things that can make or break the way this girl sees her girl experience and herself as girl.

I thought I had adequately prepared my son for things menstrual. But, in my preparation, I failed to consider that one day he would be instrumental in the attitude and views his daughter would have about herself and her periods.

How do I tell him what’s on my heart?

How do I speak the words that are more emotion than vowels and consonants?

Where do I begin? How do I begin?

I will craft a letter. It will begin like this:

Dear Son,

You are the most influential person in girl’s life. She will see herself through your eyes and your words will be what drafts her identity.

She is girl. Embrace that early and never speak against it. Lift her girlness high and hold it in esteem. Refrain from making light of her tears, of her emotions, of her inability to be/act/ react as boy (why would she want or need to? She is girl).

She is girl. One day she will enter puberty and the transformation she was born for will begin. She will grow breasts, and pubic hair, and, yes, she will have periods and all the wonders that go with it.

She will look to you for affirmation and confirmation of her identity as girl and her evolving identity as woman. Don’t let her down. Lift her up. Empower her to embrace all that being girl involves. Love her and teach her to love herself as girl. Allow her to experiment and experience life, but never give her cause to hate being girl.

Ah, my heart is too full to continue.

And, my mind is too full of memories from my own girlhood…of my dad…of my own girl experiences and struggles.

I wonder…have you any advice for me? How can I help my son become girl wise and thereby capable of becoming period wise?

Menarche at 6

What do you do for a 6 year old who has her first period? And, for her mom, who feels overwhelmed and unprepared?

How do you explain to her what’s going on and why her tummy hurts so badly?

“Why does my tummy hurt so much, Mommy? Why”

“When will it stop hurting, Mommy? When?”

Where do you keep the tears, hers from pain and her mom’s from sorrow, as they fall unbidden?

Who has answers that can bring relief to her and provide support for her mom?

Period Wise is working toward creating resources for Moms with girls who enter puberty way too early and experience menarche when their greatest concern should be homework and invites to birthday parties.

If you are the mom of a girl who is experiencing early (precocious) puberty, we’d like to hear from you.

On the Outside Looking In – Hysterectomy

As I type this, a dear friend is undergoing a hysterectomy.

Painful periods and heavy flow prompted tests and the diagnosis of Endometriosis with adhesions was given.

My friend was thankful to finally find an end to her monthly pain, but also nervous about going under general anesthesia and the knife.

Because of the location of and amount of adhesions, she was not a candidate for laparoscopic surgery. She would have abdominal surgery – in the same scar used for her C-sections.

She was concerned about pain and length of recovery. I could only share of my own experience – which was far different than her own will be.

I did not have endo and adhesions were not a problem for me. I had fibroids – some the size of grapefruits, some on stalks – and a uterus the size of a 6 month pregnancy. Surprisingly, I WAS a candidate for a laparoscopic hysterectomy.

How my experience and that of my friend compare remain to be seen.

I hope all goes well and that she is up and around and back to some semblance of normal within a week or two. Full recover, no matter the surgery chosen, won’t occur for about a year.

As I type this, I am aware that my friend will never experience another period – ever. I thought it ironic that my last period was due to begin same day as my surgery.

During her last period, I asked my friend to consider two things.

Was there was anything she would like to experience during this last period? After surgery, there will not be another opportunity.
Was there anything about her period that she would like to share with her young, teenage daughter? After surgery, her daughter would be unable to experience or learn from her mother’s periods, or benefit from anything she might learn from them.

Do you know when your last period will be?

Most women don’t.

If, while reading this post, something came to mind that you need to address, don’t put it off.

If there’s a product you want to try, try it.
If there’s something you want to know, ask it.
If there’s something you need to learn, learn it.
If there’s something you want to experience, experience it.
If there’s something you want to share, share it.

Now.

Don’t wait until it’s too late.

Period regrets are such sad regrets.

Be period wise.

Period Reform – Male Initiated

It wasn’t all that long ago that I found it impossible to imagine that a man could/would lead the way toward overcoming menstrual taboos.

After all, my OB/GYNs were all male (no offense intended to my male readers) and they were not advocates of menstruation. Their attitudes reflected what most women I knew felt – fix it, get rid of it, suffer through it.

Why would I expect a man, who does not menstruate, to advocate for menstrual openness and reform when none of the women I knew were at all concerned about menstrual taboos imposed upon them and their daughters?

Scroll forward several years and I can truly say that my life has been enriched and blessed by several men who advocate for menstrual change and who truly care about menstruating women.

On August 2, 2013, The Atlantic posted a story, by Um-e-Kulsoom Shariff, about Arunachalam Muruganantham and his menstrual activism that resulted in a huge push toward overcoming India’s menstruation taboo

Here are some highlights from the article. Be sure to click the link above and read the entire piece.

When he was 16, his father died and the science-loving teenager dropped out of school to support his family. His next life-changing event came when he married 17-year-old Shanti in 1998. His wife had never used a sanitary napkin, and she relied on an old piece of cloth for her monthly period. “Napkins are expensive. A cloth can be used repeatedly,” she confessed to him.

Muruganantham was concerned about his wife using one piece of cloth for months at a time, so he gave her some sanitary napkins as a gift. A pack of six cost him 11 U.S. cents. (You now get the cheapest cotton pack for about 30 cents.) Muruganantham concluded they were indeed expensive for something that’s only stuffed with cotton, so he set about trying to make his own.

Even though Shanti’s response was not encouraging, Muruganantham was obsessed with making a napkin that would have win her approval. When Shanti refused to be his subject, he turned to his sisters, and when they warned him against pursuing such a “disgusting” mission….

He decided he himself would wear a sanitary napkin, hoping the personal experience would give him an insight into why his napkins failed each time.

Muruganantham created a fake uterus using the innards of a soccer ball, attached a pipe to it, and filled the bladder with goat blood. He then attached this artificial uterus to a belt. When he squeezed the bladder, blood would flow from the pipe into the sanitary napkin.

For 10 days, Muruganantham lived a menstruating woman’s life: He walked, bicycled, ate, and slept in this pretend-menstruating state. “I began to stink and stained my attire. Those were the most difficult days of my life,” he says.

Muruganantham became focused on building a machine to manufacture the napkins. The idea was to set up manufacturing units in villages like his, where women, mostly unskilled laborers, could use the machines. He hoped women could pool together money to set up the businesses, create employment, and generate a demand for sanitary napkins in rural areas.

“Why buy sanitary napkins from multinationals when we can make them at home and generate employment?” Muruganantham said.

Muruganantham wants “menstruation” to be an accepted word; he hopes someday a sanitary napkin will not have to be “smuggled” out of a pharmacy. He hopes girls will stop dropping out of school in rural areas out of embarrassment.

To quote Muruganantham, “Why the ignorance?”

What a period wise question!

What period wise men do you know?

Can you identify other men active in menstrual activism, who are pushing for the end of menstrual taboos in your city? in your community? in your family?

What men can you name who are comfortable with menstruation, knowledgeable about periods, and are not reluctant to be seen doing things period wise?

What men have impacted you period wise?

Menopause – Blessing or Curse?

Carolyn West recently posted a delightful personal piece entitled “Ladies of a Certain Age: Why Nobody Talks About Menopause.”

Just like nobody ever talked about what your body would be like after childbirth, and nobody ever talked about how you would be up all night with a screaming baby, and nobody ever talked about how friggin’ hard marriage is sometimes… nobody talks about menopause. Why? Maybe for the same reason that when we are 10 years old, we have no interest in hearing about menstruation. It’s icky, it’s embarrassing and while we know it’s inevitable, we are still clinging to the hope that we’ll be the only one who will skate through it unscathed.

If you menstruate, you will one day experience menopause. That’s a fact.

Why hide it?

Why act like it doesn’t happen and that it won’t, or doesn’t, affect us?

For more information about menopause check out what some doctors advise concerning it.

Being period wise extends from pre-menarche to post-menopause.

Be period wise. It’s an attitude that makes a difference.

Camp Gyno Star Rocks Menstruation

If you’ve not seen Macy McGrail in the viral video “Camp Gyno,” you have really missed out. Take two minutes and enjoy an fresh, entertaining look as a nine year old girl experiences menarche (her first period) at camp and becomes the camp gyno.

For more on Macy McGrail and menstruation, check out Cosmopolitan’s interview of Macy.

How does Macy’s experience differ from your experience?

What is your initial reaction to the video? to how Macy embraced her first period?

Macy, who has not yet begun to menstruate is already period wise. And, by Macy’s own words, she owes much to her mom and her openness about menstruation.

What Would You Do Differently?

If you knew that your next period would be your last…

what would you do differently?
what would you like to experience during it?
what would you like to share of it? and, with whom?
would you be more open about the fact that you are menstrual?
would you invite your daughter to experience your flow in some way? to view your used product?
would you share your experience with your best friend?

If you knew that your next period would be your last, is there anything that you would feel had been left undone? or, anything you might regret not doing once it’s no longer an option?

Most women do not know when their last period will be (unless radical surgery ends it) and never consider how they will feel and whether they will have regrets when they discover that their last period was, indeed, their last.

Why wait? Why risk leaving important things undone? Why not, at your next period, do the period wise things that came to mind when I asked the questions above?

The Hippy Gardener Trashes Sposies, Goes Cup Wild

I received an email from Heather O’Cain, The Hippy Gardener, in which she stated:

I am getting ready to review a number of menstrual cups and would love to get more followers and hope others will spread the word about my project. My blog has many other topics on it, but this project is my main focus at the moment and will continue over the next few months to a year.

Curious as to what brought about this interest in menstrual cups, I asked Heather.

Upon receipt of her reply, I asked for her permission to post it here for you to read. Heather has graciously permitted me to post it in entirety.

Hello Suzan,

What prompted me to start this project is three-fold.

1. I’m honestly disgusted by our modern disposable society. And I guess the natural progression towards kicking trash from coming into our lives to begin with led me to all the trash created just because of my cycle.

2. I don’t believe that life has to be so expensive! It’s gotten out of hand how many things “they” want us to spend our money on.

3. I’m concerned about what we are doing to our bodies. There are too many fake products (food included), that we are putting in and on ourselves, that is slowly killing us.

I purchased a DivaCup years ago and have struggled with it ever since not knowing there were other options out there. This past month we could barely afford to buy my “girlie things” so I pulled the cup out again. This time I really thought about what was going wrong and also started searching online. I found that there are so many brands of cups out there it’s mind-boggling. So I’ve made it a goal to help spread the word. Since I already have a blog I’ve been working on for years ~ I figured why not do some reviews and share what I learn with others. So, yeah I just started sending out emails almost before I thought too much about it.

Thanks for checking out my blog and all the mentions on Twitter. I greatly appreciate your interest in this project and your help talking about it. I think it’s going to be fun and hopefully I win some people over from disposables.

I checked out your Periodwise blog and I love what you have going on there! Part of me can barely believe I’m even bringing up such a subject on my blog. I grew up learning that we just don’t talk about our periods and it was very subtly hinted at that it was something to be ashamed of. I’m 41 years old and I am just now getting to the point where it doesn’t embarrass me for someone to know I’m bleeding. That’s ridiculous in my mind. Girls should not be taught to be ashamed of what their body does. It’s wonderful to find people like you who are reaching out. I’ve been following The Red Tent documentary happenings on Facebook for some time and I’ve seen Be Prepared Period’s website before. I think it’s definitely time for me to be a voice in this movement as well.

Thanks again!!! I’m so glad I met you Suzan!

Heather

If you would like to support Heather in this exciting venture, you can find her on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest and at Google+.

Where Are You in Your Cycle?

A friend’s question, “Where are you in your cycle?” was met, by me, with a blank stare and repeated blinks.

And, then I said, “I don’t know. Either I just ovulated or my period started…not sure which.

I brought both hands to my breasts and squeezed gently, then said, “must be my period…boobs aren’t sore at all, and my weight’s down.”

For someone (like me) who has put a lot of attention toward knowing my exact cycle day…when to expect ovulation and when menstruation will begin…this not knowing can be bothersome. And, frustrating.

Before my hysterectomy I knew where I was, where I was going, and how soon I would arrive.

After my hysterectomy, it took some doing, but I was able to chart my hormonal changes and know where I was in my cycle even without menstruation and cervical changes/discharge. This knowledge brought comfort to me and a sense of normalcy.

Enter peri-menopauseal changes. Skipped periods. Delayed ovulation. Non-ovulatory cycles. Hormonal imbalance. Hot flashes. Vaginal dryness. Without my uterus and cervix, I felt lost. I didn’t know where I was in my cycle…if I was cycling at all.

I soon came to see that I was cycling, just not my usual 28 to 30 day cycle as before. Some cycles were short (some very short) and others longer. By being aware of weight change, bloating, breast and vaginal changes, libido, appetite, I began to see a pattern and know (sometimes several days after the fact) when my period started or when I had ovulated. If I knew that I had ovulated, I could count forward about 14 days and expect my period to start.

I’ll admit, I felt really lost at first. Knowing my cycle day and the strengths that came with each CD was a big part of my identity. With the hormonal changes I was experiencing, I did not have that knowledge to lean on each morning when I rose, or each evening as I planned out my next day’s activities, or scheduled upcoming tasks to match my most productive days in my cycle.

But, you know what I learned? Each day has it’s own strengths and every day I am strong. Yes, knowing my CD helps me be my most productive, but not knowing helps me, too.

How? Well…I don’t have an excuse for putting off unpleasant tasks for a “better CD.” I assume any and every day is the right CD for that particular task, and I lean hard into making things happen. Oh, sure…sometimes I have days when I should have just stayed in bed because nothing I touch goes the way I wanted it to. And, sitting to write…I have no idea what days I’m going to be most productive.

So, I look at every day as an opportunity to be my most productive. Every day has become an opportunity to shine. I am strong in all ways every day now and not dependent upon my cycle day strengths.

Have you ever taken a good look at your cycle day strengths? One day soon I will share what I discovered about my own CD strengths. Perhaps it will help you while you still flow.

Peri-menopause has alerted me that menopause is just around the corner. My ovaries still function, just not as reliably as they once did. And, that’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

Change is good.

What CD is this for me?

This CD is today. I am post period and pre ovulation. It’s my favorite place to be since I stopped flowing. I can look back on hormonal changes that I just experienced and marvel at them. And, I can look forward to the changes ovulation brings, should I ovulate again.

And, if menopause calls a halt on all this peri-menopausal confusion, that’s okay. It will always be CD today for me. I live in the present – fully experiencing life as it comes, leaning hard into what is and looking forward to what’s next.

As you cycle, enjoy each and every CD change that comes your way and be sure to discover your own CD strengths. Lean hard into them and learn to love your cycle and what she offers you.

And, when peri-meno knocks at your door, just smile and welcome her in. She’s not the enemy. She just heralds change.

And, change is good. Whether it’s cycle day changes or change of life – it makes us stronger, more resilient, wiser.

It makes us period wise.

Pock-It? Why not?

While flipping through a copy of the Family Handyman magazine (don’t ask), I came across an article about neat tools every handyman needs (to be aware of).

One particular item caught my eye.

The heading said: Cases for whatever you carry.

I thought, yeah…right…guys carry their tools on their belt/pants for all the world to see. Women are expected to tuck our “tools” in purses or hide them in cosmetic bags lest we embarrass ourselves or someone else.

What about women who can’t carry a purse on the job and a pocket simply isn’t sufficient?

Hmmm….

As one who prefers NOT to carry a purse, I found this intriguing. I wear jeans and like my hands free. The thought of clipping a small utility pack to my belt or onto my pants appeals to me.

Look at this picture of Pock-Its and imagine tampons, SoftCups, or pads and wipes in it instead of tools.

The top flips over to conceal and protect the contents.

The back contains a clip that attaches to a belt or the waist band.

True – it is black…but isn’t black always in style? And, some manufacturers (like Skinth Sheaths) make them to your specifications.

It’s time to break menstrual taboos.

Let’s think outside the box…beyond the traditional.

Let’s be innovative

Let’s be period wise.