I have never really kept track of my period. I usually get horrendous cramps a day before I start bleeding, which acts as my warning on when to expect the blood (kinda like how Buffy gets cramps when a vampire is around). Well, this month there were no cramps as a warning, I just woke up this morning, went to the toilet, wiped, and “Woah, blood!” Thankfully it happened at home and not at school, but it got me to thinking.
Some days I spend hours at school, I don’t carry a purse, and my bag is full of all sorts of hazards for a soft silicone cup. Pencils, pens, safety pins, guitar strings… I’d rather keep my cup with me, just to have it available if and when I need it. Has anyone come up with a way to carry their cups in school bags all day? I might resort to a Tupperware container with holes drilled in for air flow, but if anyone has any neat-o (cool, creative) ideas, I’d love suggestions.
To try and see if I can learn to keep track of my cycle, I’ve started using http://mon.thly.info/ . It seems pretty cool, and once you have at least two periods in there, they can even send you an email (as per your own specifications) to warn you in advance of upcoming ovulation/menstruation times. That would only apply if you’re fairly regular. I’ve used it for two cycles, and so far there were 27 days between the start of each period. Let’s see if the pattern continues.
It’s really hard to tell, because when I used to use only disposable products, my period seemed like such a pain in the butt. I could have sworn I bled a gallon, and with the pinching of tampon applicators on my dried out sensitive skin, the flipping over of the edges of pads so that when I pulled it off, I gave myself a bikini waxing, and the general leaking problems and the smell that permeated the toilet’s garbage bin...When all of that was going on, my period was nothing but an ugly monster that came around for an attack waaaaay too often. Now I just kinda feel a weird pride at being a woman, and a…I dunno, connection to nature. It’s hard to explain without sounding like some nightmare version of a “Happy First Period!-You’re a woman now” hallmark card that doesn’t jive with the modern mentality that led to menstruation becoming a taboo subject for which we have come up with an endless colourful array of euphemisms (“The Curse” etc.)
I have always kept my cup in from between 10 to 15 hours at a time, based on whatever the most convenient time to change it was. There are two measuring lines on my DC, one marked 1/4 Oz, and one 1/2 oz. No matter the length of time I had it in, my flow never even made it to the lowest mark. The cup has been tending to shorten the actual time I bleed, so that when I use it, I am only bleeding for four days. Since the cup is so tapered toward the bottom, I can’t really eyeball it to see how much liquid is in there when it doesn’t even make it to the bottom measuring line. What are the cutoffs for amount of flow to be considered light, medium and heavy?