(no subject)

[rivka]

My parents were diligent and responsible, plus I had two older sisters and an extensive reading habit. So, long before my first period arrived, I had a very good biological and practical understanding of what was involved.

But I can still remember, that first day, my feeling of outrage as the reality sunk in: "Really? Every month from now on, this?! Are you kidding me? What a lousy way to organize a species!"

Then, for eighteen years or so, it did happen every month, and it was just... normal. Inconvenient, but normal. It stopped when I was pregnant with Alex, but because I stopped nursing her so early it was back by four months postpartum. That wasn't long enough to lose my sense of "normal."

But Colin nurses like a fiend, and when my period arrived yesterday it was one month shy of two solid years since the previous one. And that one was one of only two or three that I had after I miscarried; then add in my second pregnancy as well.

So, at age 36, I find that I've lost my sense of "normal" again. I'm sitting here thinking "Are you kidding me with this? Why do we do this?! No, I know about the uterine lining, but really, people, what the hell?"

Comments

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure that "back in the day" with more limited nutrition and more frequent pregnancies (and miscarriages), extended nursing, later onset of puberty, and shorter lifespans, etc, women didn't menstruate nearly as often or for as long as they do now. Menstruation was actually a sign that a woman was fertile and able to get pregnant, so taken in a much more positive light. So our "normal" is not normal anyway.

[erbie.livejournal.com]

I read an article, I think it was by Malcolm Gladwell, that said pretty much this. IIRC, it was an article about the Pill and how it came about.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

Many women probably didn't. Then, as now, some regularly menstruating women had fertility issues, were single and/or abstemious. More women did, of course, die before reaching menopause.