First Bleed

I was 12 years old.

All my friends were 13 and had begun menstruating. I had all the other physical changes commonly associated with female puberty. My first menstruation was the next logical progression.

My friends’ cycles were beginning to sync up. I felt left out, Like it was this secret club I wasn’t a part of. I earned for it to come.

Ideally, at a convenient time. I anticipated the hypothetical scenario I assumed was most likely, getting it at school. That wouldn’t be a problem though, I lived 500 meters from my high school.

One unassuming Friday afternoon, I felt a then unfamiliar pang in my lower belly. I told Mum I felt a bit off and took a Panadol.

Friday nights meant the weekly 3 hour rehearsal with the Gold Coast Youth Orchestra. It was another Mum’s turn to haul us up the far end of the coast to the rehearsal space.

The feeling in my belly was getting progressively more painful and I tried my best to concentrate on the Conductor and the music. I knew something was off.

At the half-time break, I yanked my two girlfriends into the Ladies’. I untied my white cotton flowy pants, sat on the toilet and glanced down. On the crotch of my white underwear was a reddish, brownish, gooey blood.

I knew what it was. My mother ensured I was pretty well informed but I thought the blood would be brighter, like the colour of a red rose petal.

For a moment, I was overjoyed.

My period finally came, I’m a woman!

…

Then, panic set in as it dawned on me; I was wearing white and needed a pad.

‘I got my period!’ The statement echoed throughout the pink tiled bathroom. The girls erupted, congratulating me, squealing, welcoming me to the sisterhood; they knew it was my first time.

The excitement amplified by the bathroom acoustics.

I thanked and squealed at them through a crack in the cubicle door, awkwardly holding my body out of view.

My friends ran out the door and interrupted the Orchestra Mum distributing tea and bickies, whispering the secret code word into her ear.

They returned with a pad.

I removed the wrapping and peeled the strip off the adhesive side and spent too long trying to decide which way was supposed to be the front. I emerged from the stall, transformed.

I felt sick, uncomfortable, like an accident was going to happen at any moment but at least I wasn’t a kid anymore.

I face the mirror and apply a thick layer of sticky lip gloss. For the very first time, my friends checked my butt and told me ‘you’re good’. (Language of the club) Luckily, I’d caught it early and had not yet bled through. The rehearsal break came to an end; another hour and a half of orchestra rehearsal to get through.

I teetered on the edge of my seat for the rest of practice and the carpool Mum put a towel down for me in the car.

The next day, Mum took me out for lunch to celebrate my passage into Womanhood. Getting my period was a thing to be celebrated, not embarrassed about.

I learned what it was like to be in the club.

I learned that if another girl needed a pad or tampon, you are obliged to give it to her. At school, even if you hated the girl, we’d exchanged pads and tampons like currency. Women have helped each other out in this fashion since Lilith first gave Eve a tampon in the Latrine of Eden.

As time went on,

The horrible cramps became a monthly occurrence and my period was heavy as fuck It got so bad that I was having to take time off school.

Mum took me to the doctor to see if there was anything we could do to ease the pain and The GP suggested ‘the Pill’.

It seemed to reduce the symptoms.

I was on various forms of ‘the Pill’ from 14 until 12 weeks after my husband’s vasectomy.

My body regulated itself, my period would come like clockwork every 28 days. I’d feel that now familiar pang in my lower belly. The pain is often unbearable, leaving me in tears or writhing in bed. I told myself this is just part of being a biological female. It’s healthy for me to have a natural cycle and let my body ovulate. I’d resigned myself to the monthly cycle.

After seeing me suffer for so long, my husband convinced me to go to the Doctor and do something about it.

I went to the doctor, she prescribed me a Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory called Mefenamic Acid or Ponstan. I’d had Ponstan before and new the effects were minimal but I tried it again nonetheless. I went back a few months later and asked about the Mirena. The Mirena has been a whole fucking thing in itself…

I miss that wide eyed innocence.

Do you miss the time when everything felt new?

I do. I miss that wonderous state of mind that sought to soak up all the unkowns. but now, I know what it means to be in the secret club.

It’s being doubled over in physical agony, doctor says that’s just part of it. It’s being the pig in the middle while a group of year 8 boys toss your box of tampons over head, seeing your chance to sort out the blood trickling down your thighs raining onto the dirt. It’s discovering that if you want to get the stains out of your blood soaked sheets and undies you use cold water.

Etc.